From: johnson@sleipnir.pb.wes.mot.com ("Johnson") Subject: Grab the Brass Clue: rec.humor FAQ Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 20:27:42 GMT Well, I've gotten lots of fan mail and no flames. This leads me to believe that the vast majority of rec.humor readers are being victimized by a small but prolific group of truly clueless posters, so I'll just continue to post this daily until: 1) The joke-to-trash ratio reaches 1:1, or 2) More people complain about it than ask for it to be reposted. I will continue to include the acronym FAQ in the subject line, so feel free to add the line: /FAQ/:j to your killfile, after reading and understanding the contents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Welcome to rec.humor. This article discusses the answers to questions frequently asked on rec.humor, as well as (and more importantly) questions that people don't ask but should. If you read and understand this thoroughly, you stand a reasonable chance of posting to one of the most widely read newsgroups on the net without having the rest of us think you are a complete blithering idiot. If you are, in fact, an idiot, please include the word "IDIOT" in the subject headings of all of your posts so that other users are forewarned. The following are frequently asked questions on rec.humor: Q: Can somebody send me the list of ________ jokes/million question purity test? A: Of course not, you cretin. Sending people things when asked only encourages newbies to make more requests. If you really want to ask for these lists, most of which are at best sophomoric and a waste of time to sort through, you can do it on rec.humor.d where nonhumorous posts are tolerated. If you are making this request simply to advertise the fact that your IQ is lower than your shoe size, admit to having lost your copy through some boneheaded luser maneuver like accidentally deleting your archive directory. Instead of posting your insipid request to rec.humor, try the sources listed in Appendix A. After trying all these sites, if you still haven't found what you're looking for, go ahead and ask--IN REC.HUMOR.D! Q: Me too! A: So what you're saying here is that you, in addition to being at least as stupid as the guy who first asked for it, lack the imagination to even think up your own original request. Q: Why don't you just post it? A: Probably because it's already been posted four times this week. These things show up again and again, and if you'd just wait quietly for a few days you'd have the list _and_ your self-respect. Q: Where can I get a bunch of ASCII pictures? A: Start a group called rec.ascii.pictures. Remember not to post the RFD on rec.humor. Q: I need some jokes about _________. A: Then think some up. If they're any good, post them. That would be worthwhile to read. Q: I don't get this joke. Can someone explain it to me? A: No. We're all laughing too hard about either: a) You not getting a joke that's incredibly obvious to the rest of us. b) You falling for a classic "non-joke"--that is, a joke that doesn't really make sense, but is posted in the hopes that some moron like you will wrack their brains trying to figure it out. Q: I can't read this joke. Is it in Polish or something? A: It's in rot-13. If you'd taken the time to read the documentation on your newsreader, you'd probably discover a simple key that you could press to decode it. But if you had done that, you'd probably also have read news.announce.newusers and would know better than to post this kind of brainless drivel on rec.humor. Once you get it all figured out, you'll probably find that the joke is more offensive than funny or that is says something like "I just posted this to irritate all the morons who can't figure out ROT13." Q: A man lives on the 20th floor of an apartment building. In the morning, he gets on the elevator and goes to the first floor. In the evening, he takes the elevator to the 12th floor and walks up the remaining 8. Why? A: Because a person who would be in such a riddle has about the same IQ as a person who would post it to rec.humor, and thus lacks the wit to think of carrying with him something that would reach the buttons he's too short to get with his finger. He also lacks the mental agility to distinguish between humor and puzzles, which belong in rec.puzzles. Don't try posting this one over there, though--they've seen it about as many times as we have. It and about a bazillion others are listed in the voluminous rec.puzzles FAQ. Q: What is the Green Golf Ball Joke (GGBJ)? A: It is the holy grail of rec.humor; everyone looks for it, but it doesn't exist. Some jokes have been written about green golf balls, or modified to refer to green golf balls, but most of them have the same humor potential as navel lint. Of course, there are those who are easily amused and will claim to have the original, raucously funny GGBJ but be unable to post it for some lame reason which would fool only algae, some species of fungus, and of course you. Note: To find the actual joke, you need only imagine trying to play golf with a green ball. Q: What is a cascade? A: Well, there are a few people whose primary pastime before discovering the net was collecting boogers which looked like famous people's foreheads. Discovering that they had the power to post articles, but still lacking the basic verbal skills required to actually come up with some kind of a joke, they developed the cascade to replace the pun as the lowest form of wit. Why they are in rec.humor, rather than alt.cascade or alt.look.mom.my.name.is.on.the.computer, remains a mystery. Q: Would everybody please send email to my friend? A: No. If you had organized both of your brain cells enough to actually think about this, you would have realized there are several reasons: 1. This is not funny and thus does not belong in rec.humor. We might send _you_ some email pointing this out, but it certainly doesn't predispose us to do you any favors. 2. Your credibility is already damaged by the the fact that you referred to the intended recepient as your "friend," but then did the cybernetic equivalent of broadcasting their phone number on the radio. Whether this is due to dishonesty or basic stupidity is not our concern. 3. Most of us have lives. The people who send email to folks they don't know because someone on the net asked them to are mostly the same imbeciles that call late-night radio talk shows. They are not the type of people you want to associate with. On the other hand, you're probably not the type of people you want to associate with. Q: Who is Sarah Plummer, and why is she always complaining? A: She is merely an avatar of the Spirit of Jerry Falwell of Political Correctness, an entity which recurs continually in different incarnations on r.h. As Guardian of the Public Morality, this spirit has as its task to point out various real or percieved violations of the PC doctrine. Last year, it was Melissa Wandling; next year, who knows? Most of these posts are not only inappropriate for r.h, but also r.h.d, since "discussion" generally implies a two-way exchange of ideas, and the entity is clearly an output-only device. Responding in any way serves only to further clutter the group and encourage through attention the self-righteous drivel emanating from the source. As with any noise source, the best approach is to filter what you can and ignore the rest. Questions which are not frequently asked on rec.humor, but should be: Q: What is rec.humor.d? A: Rec.humor.d is for discussion related to humor, but not actually humorous. This includes requests for jokes, discussions of jokes, questions and answers relating to mainstream comedy, comments about rec.humor traffic, etcetera--in short, most of the stuff that dipshits like you erroneously post to rec.humor. Acid test: Before you post something, think to yourself: "Is this funny?" Not topical, not relevant, not important, but _FUNNY_. If you don't find it amusing, redirect it to rec.humor.d. If you do find it amusing, find somebody with a functioning brain to double-check it for you. If you don't know anyone like this, submit the post to rec.humor.d--if it's _not_ funny, they'll post it there and save you the trouble. If you don't know how to redirect a post to another group, please edit the subject line to include the word "IDIOT" as described above. Q: What is rec.humor.funny? A: An oxymoron. It is a moderated group based on the theory that the definition of humor is any inappropriate combination of UNIX, Star Trek, and Monty Python. Q: What is an OBJ? A: It stands for OBligatory Joke. If you are suffering from some psychotic disorder which causes you to make inappropriate (i.e., non-humorous) posts to rec.humor, the very least you can do is demonstrate some basic level of rational thought by appending an OBJ. Note that since this joke has the added baggage of your other worthless drivel to support, it had better be well above the standard level of joke found on the group. This means: * It should be a joke which has not been posted in the last few days. This means either that you made it up or that you took the trouble to read the group a little bit before posting. * It has to be funny. Try it on a couple of friends before subjecting the whole net to it. Make sure one or two people you try it on are from outside the asylum. Finally, submit it to Maddi Hausmann and Brad Templeton at rec.humor.funny--if they accept it, you can bet it's not funny enough for r.h. * Naming someone or something you don't like and implying that they are the OBJ _DOES_NOT_COUNT_. Only imbeciles do this. * Don't mention the OBJ and then provide only a lame excuse for not having one. The phrase "I AM A MORON FLAME ME LOVE BIFF" is just as effective and at least gets you points for honesty. Q: Is rec.humor a good place to post a test? A: For you, it probably is. Of course there's a group called misc.test where this would actually be appropriate, but lots of people post tests there so you'd actually have to be able to read your own name to be able to differentiate your tests from other peoples. By posting the test to rec.humor, you send the important message "Hey, everybody! Not only am I too feeble-minded to post this in an appropriate group, I don't even have the common sense to think of a joke to type in!" Q: I just saw a joke which offended me. What should I do? A: Get a sense of humor, and a life, in that order. If these things are not available at your site, unsubscribe to rec.humor. If you feel you must discuss your outrage publicly, redirect your followup to rec.humor.d or alt.flame, depending on how rational you feel. If you're sure that you're entirely rational and that everyone on the net agrees with you, you'd better stick with alt.flame. Some posts are clearly intended more to offend than to entertain. These posts are clearly nothing more than a pathetic cry for attention, and responding to them in any way only encourages the author to continue in the same vein. Q: Has anyone heard... A: Most probably. Jokes make it to rec.humor within hours of inception. If you got this joke by email, chances are the person who sent it to you got it from here. This is particularly true if it in any way involves Mike Hunt, KOME, the towns Fertile and Climax, the phrase "Confucius say," or the word "blonde". Your best bet is to read the group for an absolute minimum of two weeks before posting it. If the joke hasn't been posted for two weeks, other users' estimation of your IQ should at least be in the double digits. It would be best if you also sorted through all of the sources listed below in Appendix A to make sure that the joke is really new. Q: Is it okay to post something not at all funny to rec.humor in order to make sure it gets a large readership? A: If your goal is to make as many enemies in a short time as possible, sure. If you expect a lot of tired, inebriated or cranky people looking for a little humor to brighten up thier day to respond positively to a completely inappropriate posting in a clearly-labeled newsgroup, then at least posting it here will confer an accurate impression of your overall intelligence and level of social skills. Q: I just saw an artical on rec.humor that wasn't funny. Should I post an followup on rec.humor pointing out that that article wasn't funny? A: *sigh* You just don't get it, do you? Q: I saw a posting with several spelling and grammatical errors. Should I followup with my corrections to it? A: It depends. If you are having a conversation with somebody who makes grammatical and pronunciation errors, do you repeat their quotes back to them with corrections? If not, don't do it on the net. If so, don't ever, ever post anything at all to the net. Q: I heard that joke before, but slightly different. Should I follow up with a post of my version? A: By all means. This will show that you are capable of basic pattern recognition, which will marginally improve everyone's opinion of you since you posted to that cascade. Q: If I follow up to an article, how much of it should I quote? A: As much as you want. Remember that our estimate of your IQ is: #original lines 100*----------------- #quoted lines Contributions to this FAQ are appreciated. Flames may be submitted to my secretary, nemo@dev.null. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A: List of sources of lists and other miscellany. The Canonical List of Canonical Lists: anonymous ftp to pc10868.pc.cc.cmu.edu (128.2.95.103) Blonde jokes: st17y@jane.uh.edu (Belding, Troy C.) Practical jokes: marc@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (marc) davidv@sco.COM (David Vangerov) Wedding jokes: hutto@skitzo.dseg.ti.com (JR Hutto) Married with Children quotes: rlpst@cislabs.pitt.edu (Robert L Pack) Smileys: comp.sources.misc, subject v23i102 smiley/part01 smiley - smiley server or anonymous ftp to wuarchive.wustl.edu: usenet/comp.sources.misc/volume23/smiley/part01.Z ftp.uu.net: usenet/comp.sources.misc/volume23/smiley/part01.Z Other less specific sources of humor: Mail servers: jal@uiuc.edu Humor, ASCII, etc. At begining of line in message: Filesend: help Anonymous FTP: algol.cs.umbc.edu (130.85.100.2) /pub/funny cathouse.aiss.uiuc.edu (?) /misc/fun cobalt.cco.caltech.edu (131.215.48.200) /pub/bjmccall/non-political/Funny cs.dal.ca (129.173.4.5) /pub/comp.archives/alt.humor.oracle /pub/comp.archives/rec.humor /pub/comp.archives/rec.humor.d csseq.cs.tamu.edu (128.194.2.20) /ACM/aggie donau.et.tudelft.nl (130.161.144.100) /pub/humor ftp.uu.net (137.39.1.9) /doc/literature/obi/DEC/humor gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2) /.0/misc/humour irie.ais.org (141.211.206.16) /pub/humor jerico.usc.edu (128.125.51.6) /pub/jamin/sciina laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au (137.111.3.11) /pub/Documents/Humor mc.lcs.mit.edu (18.111.0.179) /its/ai/humor mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (18.26.0.36) /humor nic.funet.fi (128.214.6.100) /pub/misc/funnies /pub/misc/old-hsu-archive/publicdomain/texts/humor ocf.berkeley.edu (128.32.184.254) /pub/Library/Humor pit-manager.mit.edu (18.172.1.27) /pub/humor puffin.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.3.7) /doc/humour quartz.rutgers.edu /pub/humor rascal.ics.utexas.edu /misc/funny shape.mps.ohio-state.edu (128.146.7.200) /pub/jokes sifon.cc.macgill.ca (132.206.27.10) /pub/docs/misc/dave_barry slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com (132.158.82.36) /pub/doc/humor srawgw.sra.co.jp (133.137.4.3) /.a/sranha-bp/arch/arch/comp.archives/auto/alt.humor.oracle /.a/sranha-bp/arch/arch/comp.archives/auto/rec.humor /.a/sranha-bp/arch/arch/comp.archives/auto/rec.humor.d theta.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp (157.82.96.67) /JUNET-DB/jokes toklab.ics.osaka-u.ac.jp (133.1.12.30) /JUNET-DB/jokes tolsun.oulu.fi (130.231.96.16) /pub/humor trantor.ee.msstate.edu (130.18.64.2) /files/Text tybalt.caltech.edu (131.215.139.100) /pub/bjmccall/non-political/Funny ugle.unit.no (129.241.1.97) /pub/misc/humor