From dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu Mon Sep 14 23:54:30 1992 From: dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu (David Sewell) Newsgroups: rec.humor.oracle.d Subject: Oracle Survey results - Part 1/3 Date: 15 Sep 92 04:54:30 GMT The following two postings contain (1) statistical breakdowns and (2) a sample of narrative responses from Oracle readership questionnaires that were returned to me. I received 112 in all; thanks again to all of you who sent one back. (N.B.: these were reader/participant responses and don't include Priesthood responses.) For those of you who don't like wading through lots of numbers, here's a brief summary of what I learned. (With 100+ responses I expect this is a pretty reliable sample of Oracle readership. On the other hand, Brian Reid's estimate of worldwide rec.humor.oracle readership is c. 30,000. Anyone want to help me out on the statistics of sampling error?) You're OVERWHELMINGLY MALE. This was not a surprise, but the 92%-8% split was even larger than I had expected. (Does anyone know if there are available age/gender breakdowns of general Usenet readership?) Two-thirds of the women who responded felt that published Oracularities are definitely or somewhat too male-oriented or sexist; 46% of the men agreed. You're YOUNG, but not all that young: average age 26, with very few under 20. The fictional "undergraduate geek" audience that Incarnations often write to is pretty much that--only 27% of respondents said they are undergraduates. (On the other hand, maybe the real youngsters haven't yet learned how to respond to a Usenet posting :-) ) You're predominately AMERICAN, but not so much as many of you think: 31% of respondents were from outside the US. Second largest contingent was from Australia, with 11% of the respondents. Most Americans don't think the Oracle is too American in its focus, but 70% of non-Americans felt that it is at least sometimes. (Suggestion to American incarnations: go easy on sports and TV shows.) Yes, you're a bunch of COMPUTER NERDS! Over a third of respondents indicated they are currently employed as programmers, system administrators, software engineers, etc; many of the students are CS majors. 77% of all respondents said they are now or are preparing to be computer professionals (and many of the no's use computers heavily in their work). You're NOT REALLY NERDS! 83% of you can bench-press at least 1.25x your own weight. [sorry, obligatory leg-pulling here...] You're SCIENCE FICTION readers. Far and away the favorite leisure-time reading, with 60% of all respondents mentioning it. A GOOD Oracularity, you feel, is original, creative, clever, and offbeat. A BAD one is over-long and boring, and relies too heavily on grovel flames or Supplicant abuse, or on overused parts of the Oracle mythos. By and large, your favorite types of Oracularities are invented histories or ones that play with field-specific terms/knowledge or the conventions of the Oracle itself ("meta-Oracularities"). Disliked are Oracularities that rely heavily on the Lisa-Oracle relationship or wild slapstick and vulgarity; ASCII graphics are the most despised. (Note, however, that the ASCII-graphic "take this" extended middle finger was one of the favorites. The lesson seems to be that really funny ASCII graphics are rare.) Almost everyone thinks that the conventional anonymity of Oracular questions and answers is helpful; many of you said you wouldn't post to the Oracle without it. Finally, EVERYONE who answered the question felt that the writing and humor in the Oracularities Digest is equal to or better than the average on Usenet! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu Mon Sep 14 23:56:24 1992 From: dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu (David Sewell) Newsgroups: rec.humor.oracle.d Subject: Oracle survey results - Part 2/3 Date: 15 Sep 92 04:56:24 GMT ORACLE QUESTIONNAIRE, general version Respondents: 112 (most questions did not receive responses from every respondent) Gender: M 103 (92%) F (08%) Age: (106 responding) 15-19: 6 30-34: 13 20-24: 44 35-39: 4 25-29: 35 40-44: 4 Youngest: 17 Oldest: 42 Average: 26.1 Median: 25 Mode: 23 Country of Originating Address: USA 77 69% Finland 2 2% Australia 12 11% Norway 2 2% UK 5 4% Sweden 2 2% Germany 4 4% Portugal 1 1% New Zealand 3 3% South Africa 1 1% Canada 2 2% Switzerland 1 1% Occupation or current level of studies: (Not all responded; some indicated both studies & career) Computer programmer / system administrator software engineer / etc: 38 Undergraduate student: 30 Graduate student: 17 Miscellaneous business/professional: 9 Miscellaneous scientific/technical: 8 Engineering: 7 Bum: 1 I. Your General Usenet/Computer Background 1. Do you read posted Oracularities via rec.humor.oracle or via the e-mail list? (105 responding) R.H.O: 75 list: 30 2. (If you don't have Usenet access, skip to #4). How long have you had access to Usenet? (97 responding) < 2 months 2 2-6 months 3 6 mo - 1 yr 8 1 - 2 yrs 25 2 - 5 yrs 43 > 5 years 16 3. Besides rec.humor.oracle, what other Usenet groups do you most actively read and/or post to? (Great variety on this one. Among the most common or relevant: comp.* 46 rec.humor.funny 23 rec.humor 5 rec.* 25 rec.arts.* 14 talk.bizarre 7 ) 4. What other forms of computer networked communication do you regularly participate in? (E.g. Listserv lists, IRC and MUDs, commercial on-line service or BBS forums, e-mail art, groupware projects, etc.) Listserv: 34 Fidonet: 5 none: 28 Compuserve: 5 BBS's: 14 other com. MUD, etc: 12 BBS: 4 IRC/Relay: 11 BBS sysop: 3 5. Are you now or are you preparing to be a "computer professional"? (109 responding) YES: 86 NO: 16 SEMI: 5 (will or do work in computer-intensive field) MAYBE: 2 6. Briefly, what's your background in computing? (93 responding. Labels are partially subjective; "advanced"=strong CS background, programming, and/or systems knowledge; "intermediate" =some programming & systems, self-taught or beginning CS) novice: 4 intermediate: 19 advanced: 70 II. Your General Writing/Literary Background 1. What kind of writing, if any, do you do professionally? as a hobby or on the side? (Include Usenet and other on-line writing.) technical/research: 33 (underreports academic writing) fiction, amateur: 19 none: 10 poetry: 9 memos/reports: 5 humorous: 3 games: 3 fiction, profes.: 1 2. Have you had writing published? Yes: 20 No: 42 3. What kinds of writing do you prefer to read in your leisure time? Science fiction: 68 Science: 9 Fantasy: 27 Classics: 9 Humor: 14 History: 6 Thriller/horror: 11 Philosophy: 4 Mysteries: 11 Poetry: 4 Technical: 10 Nonfiction: 4 Fiction, novels: 9 III. You as a Reader of Oracularities 1. Why do you read rec.humor.oracle (or postings to the Oracle mailing list)? The virtually unanimous response was "for humor." 2. What do you think makes for a good Oracularity? What qualities of writing or mind impress you the most? At the other extreme, what makes for a bad Oracularity? (Categories named by more than three respondents. In many cases, I have condensed a general description into a single abstract term.) Good Bad ---- --- Orginality 16 Over-long & boring 16 Creativity 14 Grovel flames or Offbeat, off- abuse of Supplicant 14 the-wall 15 Overuse of Oracle Wit, cleverness 13 mythos, Lisa/Orrie 10 Brevity 8 Too much grovelling 7 Puts spin on question 8 Grammar/spelling errors 6 Arcane refs, in-jokes 5 Inside jokes 5 Good use of question 4 Too brief 5 Vulgarity, bad taste 5 Techno-dweeb references 5 Too regional or local 4 Mundane, serious 4 3. If you can recall them, what are one or two of your favorite published Oracularities (with responses written by someone other than yourself), and why? Oracularities mentioned by at least two (#) respondents: 134-10 Whither Troff? (2) 391-08 Very Strange Bible (2) 135-08 Hawking vs. Merlin (8) 394-09 schizoid Oracle (6) 140-05 Hulk vs. Superman (2) 401-03 Carnegie Hall (2) 202-06 Take this! finger (5) 415-04 Power User & Bitman (2) 303-06 schizoid Oracle (2) 460-05 Origins of ZOT (3) 353-03 meaning of universe (2) 465-05 Oracle School (2) 365-10 English vs metric (6) 469-04 What's the point (2) 4. How do you think the quality of writing/humor on rec.humor.oracle compares with that of other Usenet writing you're familiar with? with "real-world" writing? ("Real-world" writing question proved too vague to respond to, but comparison with Usenet writing was more conclusive:) Worse than average Usenet writing: 0 Comparable to " " " 8 Better than " " " 38 5. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = not at all to 5 = very much), how much do you tend to like the following genres of Oracularities? (Assume in each case that the Oracularity is a competent example of the genre.) (Ranked average score for each category given first; categories sorted by rank.) invented histories 3.83 clever use of field-specific terms, etc 3.63 meta-Oracularity (plays w/ conventions) 3.63 parodies of classical literature 3.55 political satire 3.54 parodies of TV shows 3.48 parodies of computer documentation 3.46 simulated Unix/VMS/etc sessions 3.27 parodies of popular lit (Sam Spade, etc) 3.20 humorous or nonsense verse 3.13 simulated text adventure games 3.06 high sexual content/humor 2.93 weird prose a la talk.bizarre 2.75 heavy use of Lisa/Oracle relationship 2.71 wildly vulgar and/or slapstick 2.67 ASCII graphics 2.33 Average rank: 3.20 standard deviation: 0.41 6. Do you think the published Oracularities tend to be too male-oriented or sexist? (yes/no; elaborate if desired) YES: 29 (24 M, 5 F) NO: 51 (48 M, 3 F) maybe, somewhat: 22 (21 M, 1 F) Yes but so what: 4 (male) 7. Do you think the published Oracularities are too exclusively American in their focus? (yes/no; elaborate if desired) YES: 25 (11 US, 14 non-US) NO: 48 (40 US, 8 non-US) maybe, sometimes: 16 (11 US, 5 non-US) no opinion: 7 (US) IV. Your Activities as an Author 3. Have you ever "researched" a question or response--for example, gone to an encyclopedia to check historical dates, or looked up information in a textbook or computer manual? YES: 26 NO: 36 4. What do you do with a question that assumes knowledge in an area you know little or nothing about? (Many people put more than one alternative in their response.) Answer but "twist" the question 24 in another direction: Don't answer it: 19 Fake it or "wing it": 18 Do research or ask someone: 11 5. How do you feel about the anonymity of Oracularities? (In theory Incarnations can identify themselves, but fewer than 1% do.) Does it make a difference? Would you put more effort into writing for the Oracle if you knew your identity would be public? Or is the anonymity helpful? It is useful, helpful: 38 It is crucial: 9 Makes no difference: 9 Would rather be identified: 4 Ambivalent: 2 6. Do you have an imagined audience when you write a question or response for the Oracle? If so, how would you characterize that audience? None: 15 Computer literate/ computer geek: 10 Well-educated: 8 The Supplicant: 8 People like myself: 6 Students: 3 Typical Usenet reader: 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu Mon Sep 14 23:58:07 1992 From: dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu (David Sewell) Newsgroups: rec.humor.oracle.d Subject: Oracle Survey results - Part 3/3 Date: 15 Sep 92 04:58:07 GMT SAMPLE NARRATIVE ANSWERS TO SELECTED QUESTIONS FROM ORACLE QUESTIONNAIRE -------------------- I.5. Are you now or are you preparing to be a "computer professional"? [from 3 of the 16 out of 112 who aren't] ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! God forbid. NO!!!!!!!!!!! III. 1. Why do you read rec.humor.oracle (or postings to the Oracle mailing list)? It is hilarious. Primarily because of its high-tech humor nature. The people who submit to and reply for the Oracle have much the same type of sense of humor as I. Because I like to see other people get abused. The variety of responses within the "Usenet Oracle" context. I stopped reading rec.humor because although the material is often good, reading one liners and stories as a collection of articles lacks something. Oracularities are designed (?) for the medium in which they are read - I can't imagine it working on anything but Usenet. The Usenet Oracle does remind me of a good role playing game: lots of individual contributions within a shared set of conventions and structure. I may not like some of the contributed questions and answers, but no doubt everyone else who reads it has their own likes and dislikes and the overall "system" benefits from the variety. III.2. What do you think makes for a good Oracularity? What qualities of writing or mind impress you the most? At the other extreme, what makes for a bad Oracularity? Good Oracularities are really original. They may refer to Oracular "traditions" a bit, but they don't rely on them. A good Oraculariy is funny even to someone that's never read one before. Good Oracularities generally use the question as a point of departue for a piece of creative writing. They are generally not overly long. What impresses me about an Oracularity is unusualness: if it's off the wall, it's good. Bad ones are just plain dull. Most good oracularities are sharp and to the point. They are free of grammatical and spelling problems. They sparkle with intelligence and wit. Bad oracularities drivel and wander. They have the core of a good idea but waste it. They are formatted in peculiar ways or contain horrendous language errors. The best ones are necessarily creative and humorous, but I think the very best ones display a sort of *attitude* that the Oracle has. This is hard to define. It's sort of an agreed-upon personality that the collective mind has. Now that I am wise to the history of the Oracle, I like Oracularities that involve some of the long-running jokes, such as the goings-on between the Oracle and Lisa, the need for grovelling, the , and the frequent name-dropping of Steve Kinzler. For a good Oracularity, I admire elegant nonsense, where elegant is used in the mathematical sense. By this, I mean that the basic precept of the Oracularity, whether posed in the question or in the reply, is utter idiocy in the face of whatever guidelines defining the scope of the subject's arena. Despite this seeming irrelevance, the problem is explained in a logical progression that is perfect acceptable, albeit far-fetched. At the other extreme I hate it when too many people decide to write about "Lisa" or have conversations with her. Samuel Clemens would know how to do it right, but those who try on the internet are usually not as gifted. The joke is usually bland and tired by the third sentence. an answer I would NEVER have thought of in a million years I HATE (!!!!) Oracularities which rely on some intensive knowledge and familiarity with computers, operating systems and languages - computer nerd 'humour' of this sort is pathetic. III.4. How do you think the quality of writing/humor on rec.humor.oracle compares with that of other Usenet writing you're familiar with? with "real-world" writing? Surprisingly good. I'm often amazed at what "ordinary people" come up with in this forum Excellent -- only the alt.galactic-guide has better humorous writing. I think Oracularities are some of the best Usenet writings to be found, and I think they rank well with some amateur fiction. As far as creativity goes, it pales in comparison to alt.conspiracy, but is better then any other news group. Better than rec.humor.funny. Much funnier than rec.humor (which I stopped reading.) I'd have to say that the very best Oracularities are as funny as pieces I've read by great contemporary humorists like Roy Blount and Dave Barry. The bad ones are as bad as things I wrote in junior high school. III.6. Do you think the published Oracularities tend to be too male-oriented or sexist? Yes. But there have been some (welcome, IMHO) oracularities with a femenin appeal of it's own... I remember a couple of them that give Orrie the female gender, and one that although not strictly humorous, showed a compassion and a affectuosity that Orrie should show more times. [Portuguese male] yes, but sometimes the sheer history of the oracle keeps it that way. sometimes I'll answer as if the oracle were male and other times as female. [from a female] No. The persona of the Oracle is male. I expect responses to work with that fact. yes!!!!! I think that since more men than women use this (guess), there's a sense of it being more "male". When I post a question that involves a personal answer, I always say that I'm female, because I'm sick of having answers that refer to my penis. Probably a bit too male-oriented; it reflects the dominance of guys on the network. Oracularities that competently point this put are some of my favorites. No, but then I am an "insensitive jerk" so mine might not be the best opinion. Absolutely. Probably not enough women contribute, and the existing stuff discourages them (same as pinball and video games; they don't play because it isn't designed for them, so no one one designs some for them!). The worst aspect is the assumption that either the Oracle and/or the Supplicant is male, which rides through a lot of the Oracularities. Yes, occasionally. I have noticed a tendency to refer to all questioners as "he" unless it is strongly specified that the questioner is female (this has happened to me a number of times). They are more male-oreinted than female, but they don't appear (to me, who happens to be female) to be sexist. "Lisa" is a strong female figure. not particularly (and I object to such stuff more than most guys) They are male-oriented, but the Oracle is male. Deal with it. :-) They are not too male-oriented. Yes, but that almost certainly reflects the usenet community (geeks! We're all geeks!) No. Anyone who does can either participate more or leave. Their choice. Start trying to regulate the male/female ratio of the oracle's participants and things are going to get ridiculous. Uh....Yesssssss...buuuuuut. I don't think they are too sexist per se. The female characters are generally portrayed as either 1) complete ditzy blondes (which is a class unto itself), or b) highly competent, secretly-run-the-universe, strong women. I usually see b). Yes, it is heavily male-oriented...but it's written mostly by males. Such is the nature of the engineering/computing community. I'm sure it will change when the demographics do. Many posts (obviously written by males) show a vast consideration and respect for females, so I don't think the Oracle is sexist. III.7. Do you think the published Oracularities are too exclusively American in their focus? [a German] yes; persons I don't know are referred to excessively (David Letterman, Monty Hall) [An Australian] Probably, but we get blasted with so much american culture out here that we can probably follow it. The reverse is true, that truly spectacular oracularities will be missed because they don't make sense to US priests. yes, as a German I do not understand all of the Oracularities, BUT: it gives us a fine insight in current american developments (;-) [American] No. But this is not as black and white as it might seem. As those who seem to participate the most are Americans, what the hell else are they supposed to do? The Oracle is free; if an Englishman, Frenchman, or other nationality wanted to see fewer Americanisms on the digest, then all they need to do is post and vote. [from an American] [American] Yes, but that is cultural. Unless the Oracle receives supplications of a culturally-specific nature and the Oracle responds with American stuff... Bad response. They are noticeably American in focus eg satire on American political figures. However, American politics gets enough coverage here (Australia) to be familiar with jokes about major political figures eg Quayle, Bush, and Perot. In fact I myself have gone with the flow and made jokes about them as well. Jokes about Australian political figures would be lost on everyone except Australians and to some extent New Zealanders and Brits. I like seeing americans abused in public. [A Canadian] IV.3. Have you ever "researched" a question or response--for example, gone to an encyclopedia to check historical dates, or looked up information in a textbook or computer manual? Yes. In fact, my officemate and I keep a Webster's Dictionary on our shared chunk of desk for Oracular omnipotence assistence. We often zipover to the library so that we can look things up in bigger and more complicated books. Yes. I spent about an hour poring over a thesaurus for one answer; and I went to look up an obscure fact about the history of the chamber organ for another one. no - if I had to research an answer, what about the people who are going to read the answer? You should be able to understand the joke immediately without recourse to texts or other references... Every time I answer a quesion I use the dictionary and several reference works. IV.4. What do you do with a question that assumes knowledge in an area you know little or nothing about? Either twist it into a question unrelated to its original intention (eg Once someone asked me about a slide rule ... being unfamiliar with a slide rule I answered based on a set of rules for using a playground slide), or don't reply to it. IV.5. How do you feel about the anonymity of Oracularities? Does it make a difference? Would you put more effort into writing for the Oracle if you knew your identity would be public? Or is the anonymity helpful? I think it's essential. I wouldn't have the guts to use the Oracle if I knew my name was going with everything I wrote. The anonyminity is good if your answer is poor, but if it scores well I want people to know (perhaps that's why I'm answering this!) I dig the anonymity. If my identity were public, I wouldn't bother; people would start reading the Oracularity from the point where they read the name - "Oh, [name deleted] - I hate/love *his* Oracularities! I say make everybody read 'em all, every time! When I read Oracularities, though, I prefer to think of a faceless deity in a cave somewhere, not xxx@xxxxx.xxxxxx.edu. I prefer anonymity. I think the anonymity is very helpful. It helps me to give answers which are much more uninhibited. If I knew my identity would be made public I might be a little reluctant to write, since I would not want co-workers to know how much I am involved. I like it. Again, it reminds me of roleplaying games: for the answer, I assume the identity of the Usenet Oracle and write from that viewpoint. If my question/answer gets published, _I_ know who wrote it. I dislike the anonymity, because it doesn't allow me to identify authors that I like. I would probably receive more ego gratifi- cation if it weren't anonymous. I'd put less effort into writing for the Oracle if it were public. I prefer the idea of an all-powerful Oracle rather than the various incantations scenario (which I have used, however...!) Sometimes it would be nice to say, "I wrote that!" but I prefer to just smile knowingly... IV.6. Do you have an imagined audience when you write a question or response for the Oracle? If so, how would you characterize that audience? A room full of sophomore and junior undergraduate computer science geeks with x-rated gifs on their xterms, speaking technobabble to each other, and nary a one of them has had a date or a bath for a month. Seriously, I imagine a fairly well-educated readership with a good sense of humor. A bunch of long-haired computer geeks in sandals :-) all highly educated. I imagine a predominantly male, white, straight, science fiction reading, slightly (or very) nerdy group of computer people. Not everything I write is necessarily directed at their common experience because I like putting a radical, female, not-straight viewpoint in their faces to remind them that people like me exist. V. Catch-all: add anything you'd like that answers to the above questions haven't fully covered. An interesting idea would be to commision a cartoonist to draw pictures to go along with the oracularities, and then publish the pictures and oracularities. I think this would do well in the "real world". rec.humor.oracle is the primary reason that, when my employer cut off non- work-related news groups, I spent hundreds of dollars on equipment so I could get news at home! -- David Sewell, English Dept, U of Rochester | "Grammarians without any dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu | character at all lecture dsewell@violet.ccit.arizona.edu | us upon that of Homer." (On leave in Tucson, Arizona, '92-'93) | --Diogenes the Cynic From dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu Wed Sep 23 11:31:59 1992 From: David Sewell Subject: File you requested: survey.pri Date: Wed, 23 Sep 92 11:31:59 EDT [This file has 3 parts: numeric breakdowns, selected narrative responses, and commentary by me. --DS] -------------------------------------------------------------- PART I: Statistical summary, answers to selected questions ORACLE QUESTIONNAIRE, Priesthood Version Respondents: 13 Gender: M 13 (100%) F 0 Age: 15-19: 0 30-34: 4 20-24: 5 35-39: 1 25-29: 3 Youngest: 21 Oldest: 35 Average: 27.1 Countries: USA 10 Australia 2 UK 1 Occupation or current level of studies: Computer programmer / system administrator software engineer / etc: 10 Graduate student: 2 Medicine: 1 Undergraduate student: 1 I. General Usenet/Computer Background 1. Do you read posted Oracularities via rec.humor.oracle or via the e-mail list? R.H.O: 8 list: 6 2. How long have you had access to Usenet? 1 - 2 yrs 4 2 - 5 yrs 4 > 5 years 5 5. Are you now or are you preparing to be a "computer professional"? YES: 11 NO: 1 MAYBE: 1 II. Your General Writing/Literary Background 1. Besides the Usenet Oracle, have you ever done any sort of editorial work, professional or otherwise? YES: 4 NO: 7 2. What kind of writing, if any, do you do professionally? as a hobby or on the side? Technical/research/academic: 6 Fiction, amateur: 4 Journalism: 2 Humorous: 1 Games: 1 3. Have you had writing published? YES: 7 NO: 4 4. What kinds of writing do you prefer to read in your leisure time? Science fiction: 10 History: 1 Fantasy: 3 Fiction, novels: 1 Thriller/horror: 3 Politics: 1 Technical: 3 Ethnography: 1 Mysteries: 2 Religious: 1 Science: 2 III. Your Activities as a Priest/Reader 2. At some length, what do you look for in an Oracularity good enough to make the Digest? What qualities of writing or mind impress you the most? At the other extreme, what makes for a bad Oracularity? (Qualities named by more than one respondent) Good Bad ---- --- Brevity, concision 9 Spelling/grammar errors 4 Humor, pure & simple 6 Bad temper, Zotting 3 verbal style, worplay 4 cleverness 3 creativity 2 4. Which of the following fields of knowledge do you think are necessary for a competent Incarnation of the Oracle? Rank on a scale of 1-5, from 1 = not important to 5 = very important. Classical (Greek/Roman) myth: 3.5 Classic English/American lit: 3.4 Illuminati, Tolkien etc. 3.4 Current world affairs: 3.3 US popular culture/politics: 3.2 Hacker culture: 3.1 Geography and history: 3.1 The Oracle mythos: 3.0 Unix OS: 2.8 Natural and biological science: 2.8 C programming: 2.6 Movies: 2.6 Other OS's: 2.5 British culture: 2.1 Canadian culture: 2.0 Rock music: 1.8 Foreign languages: 1.6 Average: 2.75 Standard Dev.: 0.57 5. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = not at all to 5 = very much), how much do you tend to like the following genres of Oracularities? [In order of rank, with average score, followed by comparison figures of rank/score from general readership survey.] general overall (1) Meta-Oracularity: 3.83 ( 3 - 3.63) ( 1 - 3.73) (2) TV show parody: 3.67 ( 5 - 3.48) ( 2 - 3.58) (3) Computer docs parody: 3.58 ( 7 - 3.46) ( 4 - 3.52) (4) Text adventure game: 3.58 (11 - 3.06) ( 8 - 3.32) (5) High sexual content: 3.55 (12 - 2.93) ( 9 - 3.24) (6) Invented histories: 3.33 ( 1 - 3.83) ( 2 - 3.58) (7) Field-specific terms/knowledge: 3.25 ( 2 - 3.63) ( 5 - 3.44) (8) Classical lit. parodies: 3.17 ( 4 - 3.55) ( 6 - 3.36) (9) Political satire: 3.17 ( 5 - 3.54) ( 6 - 3.36) (10) Popular lit (Sam Spade, etc.): 3.00 ( 9 - 3.20) (10 - 3.10) (11) Simulated computer session: 2.83 ( 8 - 3.27) (11 - 3.05) (12) Humorous verse: 2.58 (10 - 3.13) (12 - 2.86) (13) ASCII graphics: 2.50 (16 - 2.33) (14 - 2.42) (14) Wildly vulgar/slapstick: 2.38 (15 - 2.67) (13 - 2.53) (15) Heavy use of Lisa/Orrie: 2.13 (14 - 2.71) (14 - 2.42) (16) Just plain weird prose: 1.96 (13 - 2.75) (16 - 2.36) Average rank: 3.03 (3.20) Standard dev: 0.56 (0.41) 6. Do you think the published Oracularities tend to be too male-oriented or sexist? (yes/no; elaborate if desired) YES: 6 NO: 4 Maybe, somewhat: 3 7. Do you think the published Oracularities are too exclusively American in their focus? (yes/no; elaborate if desired) YES: 3 (2 US, 1 non-US) NO: 7 (6 US, 1 non-US) Maybe, sometimes: 2 (1 US, 1 non-US) No opinion: 1 (US) IV. Your Activities as an Author 3. Have you ever "researched" a question or response--for example, gone to an encyclopedia to check historical dates, or looked up information in a textbook or computer manual? YES: 10 NO: 3 4. What do you do with a question that assumes knowledge in an area you know little or nothing about? Do research or ask someone: 5 Fake it or "wing it": 4 Answer but "twist" the question 3 in another direction: Don't answer it: 2 5. How do you feel about the anonymity of Oracularities? (In theory Incarnations can identify themselves, but fewer than 1% do.) Does it make a difference? Would you put more effort into writing for the Oracle if you knew your identity would be public? Or is the anonymity helpful? It is useful, helpful: 8 It is crucial: 4 Would rather be identified: 1 6. Do you have an imagined audience when you write a question or response for the Oracle? If so, how would you characterize that audience? None: 4 Computer literate/ computer geek: 3 Supplicant: 1 "In-crowd:" 1 ==================================================== PART II: Narrative responses to selected questions III. Your Activities as Priest/Reader 2. At some length, what do you look for in an Oracularity good enough to make the Digest? What qualities of writing or mind impress you the most? At the other extreme, what makes for a bad Oracularity? (1) This is a difficult question to answer since on reflection I find that I have violated several of my "criteria" at various times. Those that I select either make me laugh as I read them, or perhaps are less funny but particularly cleverly written. Some Incarnations demonstrate the Oracle's perverse nature particularly well, for example deliberately misinterpreting words. This puts me in mind of the original Oracle whose pronouncements were never clear and were always ambiguous. Very rarely will I select one that will appeal only to a very small audience, but I have done so on occasion. I am partial to short witty answers. Those which are automatically rejected are any containing s, unless they are extraordinarily funny or cleverly done. I confess that I have been guilty of using that device myself. Lisa is another concept which needs to be handled carefully. Sometimes I find it difficult to answer questions referring to her; the one exception (this is not for publication!) was XXX-XX, to which I wrote the answer. Other automatic rejections are for flaming the questioner for lack of grovelling; I find that this is continually overdone and it is very irritating. In my own responses I *never* refer to the level of grovelling; usually I ignore its presence or absence completely. It may have been funny to begin with but the attraction has long since worn off. Interestingly, the people who run the Genesis Oracle specifically state in their helpfile that supplicants should use copious grovelling. (2) First, I prefer brevity. Second, I try to avoid questions with "stock" answers. Although they can often be _very_ funny (and I will submit them if they are), I would rather that both Q and A are worked on a bit. Then, any answers that sound grumpy or bad tempered are tossed out. The Oracle is a very patient sort of entity. I am still avoiding ZOT's if I can, but it looks like the grovel wars are fading, so I will ease off a bit there. I will avoid fancy graphic answers unless they fit in well with the accompanying text, which must be the dominant element. I am biased (and I know it is unfair) against bad spelling, but will fix it up if I submit the Oracularity. I try to avoid common types of responses eg Orrie/Lisa innuendo. It is easy to see creativity at work. Answers that take a sideways step will have a better chance. (3) I hate unnecessary spelling errors. Obviously I make a fair few, but I always have a dictionary to consult. Consistent visual style is good (ie indentation) and I don't like people who don't line-wrap in a sensible place. The Oracularity I choose won't have any American political in-jokes, except about the President. I'm not American! Similarly, references to a lot of TV shows won't pass me, but by reading the parodies I'm getting a better idea of what the originals are like ... Originality is essential. A paranoid, racing Hunter Thompson/Illuminati style is fun. Long replies and questions are out (Due to time, I have to scan read most stuff going past, and it doesn;t take long to lose the flow and hence abandon the article). Wordplays and creative mis-quotes are in! Wierd perverse sex is better hinted at than explained, but that's probably because more people talk about it than actually know what's involved (not me, I'm an innocent! :-) Following the guidelines is in - what does the supplicant owe the Oracle? Making it fit the answer is even better, and in some cases the full impact is in the demand. Anybody who can come up with a new answer to a null question is definately in! (4) RULE #1 Compact By compact I do not mean that it has to be short, but that there should be little "fluff" but mostly humor. For most Oracle writers, this means not e-mailing out your first draft, but going over your extemporaneous writing and editing it. [...] A perfect answer from the Oracle says nothing about grovelling or ZOT, responds to the question in an original, short, witty manner aimed at approaching the question from the unexpected. It optionally ends in a line "You owe the Oracle (some appropriate)" as a follow-up or closing. (5) I guess I'm partial to one's that make me smirk, when I read them the forth or fifth time. I'm noticeing that I like the "oracle realated" ones, ones that need knowlege of the Oracle to make sense. I also like ones that are short, but funny. I also tend to like total nonsense. (6) As for _what_ is funny, there are several obvious issues. First, if the question or the answer goes on for more than a page, it's probably a washout. Secondly, grammar and spelling do count for something. Finally, the answer is *far* more important than the question. In the past 6 months, I've seen dozens of really great questions that haven't been given justice by their answers. Quick, trite, or one word answers usually get pitched immediately. (7) The simple rule is that I should laugh out loud; Oracularities that qualify under that rule are usually either clever wordplay, elaborate parody or bad puns. Creative response to an uninspiring question is also worth points. (8) Oracular responses that get forwarded to oracle-good are generally: well-written with a sense of timing and flair; spelled reasonably correctly; are as long as they need to be, and not much longer; and are slightly pompous but tongue-in-cheek. (9) I see so many bad Oracularities, it's hard to be specific about the rejection criteria. Lack of humor is the primary one. If there is humor, I have to judge what the humor/length ratio is. If the piece philosophical rather than humorous in nature, and it's good, I'll pass it (these are *very* rare). For the most part, the Oracularities I've bounced are those that just made me go, "eh...." (10) Some of the meta-humor involving the Oracle can be very entertaining, especially because it's not always clear if the Oracle is supposed to be (1) a supernatural, omniscient deity who really could answer everything correctly but chooses instead to have some fun, (2) an ordinary mortal who is so deranged he's actually convinced he is The Usenet Oracle, (3) a person who is posing Wizard-of-Oz-like as The Oracle, believing he's fooling everyone, or (4) the real truth, just plain people that, with a wink and a nudge, are trying to have some fun. And so help me, I've always liked the best of the computer simulations that the Oracle has produced. Some of this is because we're really making fun of ourselves, the users of computers, and the designers and implementers of computer hardware and software, which is not necessarily distinct from the group of users. Think about it, much of the Oracle mythology is simply a satire of the stereotypical computer nerd. He's a know-it-all who holes up in his sanctum sanctorum, surrounded by every kind of computer hardware and software imaginable, connected to every network that might exist (including olympus-net, god-net, cthulhu-net, you name it) and continuously engaged in multiple simultaneous conversations from people obsequiously seeking his knowledge. He also has this delusion of a babe named Lisa attending to his every whim, and he has quite a few whims, if you know what I mean (nudge, nudge). The Usenet Oracle is (or at least once was) self-satire at its best. Jonathan Swift would have been proud. So would Alexander Pope, but he'd want it all in verse. 6. Do you think the published Oracularities tend to be too male-oriented or sexist? (yes/no; elaborate if desired) Yes, sad but true. That's why, every now and again, I write an answer in which Lisa takes charge, usually leaving Our Hero cowering in a corner. Yes. The standard "omnipotent male Oracle plus sexy brainless Lisa" stuff is incredibly irritating. Possibly so but the Oracle in my view has evolved as a sexist male caricature so this is not inappropriate. They are male-oriented and sexist, but that's just a feature of the audience cross-section. There are a couple of notable female incarnations, however, and it makes a refreshing change. Most definitely yes. But some of the best Oracularities have been done by female sexists. 7. Do you think the published Oracularities are too exclusively American in their focus? (yes/no; elaborate if desired) no - i suspect most priests react as i do when they see something that does not have global appeal Yes. I often try to "Americanize" (note use of the "z" not "s"!) my answers so as to make them more appealing to the masses, whom I perceive as being largely American. I sometimes feel vaguely unclean doing this! 8^} Yes, but again, this is understandable, since despite the Internet, a lot doesn't get to cross the pond to Europe or Oz. Also, we've infected their cultures with American goods, such as television programs. So even if an incarnation were European, s/he would most likely use the richest source for parody and humorous sources: America. No. More Americans use the Oracle, that's all. IV. Your Activities as an Author 3. Have you ever "researched" a question or response--for example, gone to an encyclopedia to check historical dates, or looked up information in a textbook or computer manual? [from another section, but relevant:] I give special credit to people who go out of their way to research something. If the user asks a question about Bill Gates, the responder should learn something about Bill Gates and respond in the proper context with a Gates-specific witticism. Or if the user asks a question involving a foreign language or a special fiction genre, I am always appreciative when the Oracle responds in the same language or genre. 5. How do you feel about the anonymity of Oracularities? (In theory Incarnations can identify themselves, but fewer than 1% do.) Does it (1) The anonymity is absolutely critical in my opinion. I would still contribute if my identity were public because I am an exhibitionist at heart, but this should never be allowed to happen. It would also introduce a possible bias in selection by the Priests. Some of the Priests are brilliant incarnations (Leo Schwab especially springs to mind, but only because I have been able to connect him directly with some that I liked particularly), but if Priests' answers were regularly and frequently selected then it would lay us open to accusations of bias, perhaps rightly so. I once selected one (448-10) in which the questioner left in their signature which took up about two screens. I belittled him for this in my answer, but as it turned out the Priest changed his signature and preserved his anonymity - probably just as well. (2) I don't care who wrote it, but it sort of loses something when I see a signature line. Destroys the myth, so to speak. (3) I think it would be nice to have less anonymity for those who want it, because it would encourage pride and therefore encourage participation. (4) Anonymity is essential. The 'net has plenty of people who delight in the fact that *their* words are being seen by the world. The Oracle doesn't need that (in fact, the 'net doesn't need that either ...) I don't like people putting real addresses on their questions/answers, but I do myself use vague aliases. (5) I like it just the way it is. I have only been tempted to send comments to answerers on 2 occasions, and decided against it both times. I might cope with knowing who is who, but I cannot ask everybody else to agree with me. What if it was Bill Smith at the desk next to me? 6. Do you have an imagined audience when you write a question or response for the Oracle? If so, how would you characterize that audience? (1) Half people with a liberal arts education, half computer nerds. I'm both. (2) Sad to say, I write for clones of me. Computer-literate, network- savvy (but not a God), hater of all things MicroSoft and Intel, appreciator of the absurd, the clever, and the ridiculous. (3) Actually, to my dismay, as soon as i saw that question, I immediately thought of a pimply, somewhat smart-alec undergraduate student in some dim computer lab somewhere. The other audience is a much older, graying "been around for years - done everything" type of professional. (4) I write for the Oracle "in" crowd who will appreciate a well-written Oracle response. This means the priests and other afficionados from whom I know there will be real respect for a good answer. (5) Only the person who sent the question matters. The Oracle is only a publishing medium as a distillation method, people shouldn't be writing questions/answers to get them selected by the Priesthood. If the guy who sent the question consistently gets bum answers, even if they get selected for the Digest, he'll stop asking. V. Catch-all: add anything you'd like that answers to the above questions haven't fully covered. I gave the Hacker Culture high marks in the styles section above, because I think it's a good and correct outlook to try to educate 'net users into. The Oracle has a (slightly) moderated version of the 'net's government by anarchy, for example see the ZOTting epidemic of a few months back. Once it got out of hand, there was a backlash against it - not a violent one, but a passive one. People recognised that the joke had been worn excessively thin, and stopped using it. From even before that, there were the net.gods and .goddesses, we had a veritable pantheon, but they've fallen into obscurity . The Oracle evolves, slowly but surely. Three cheers for Brother Steve... =) ==================================================== PART III: Commentary. First, some notes on how responses from the Priesthood compared with the general responses. Demographics are pretty similar (n.b. Steve's weekly priesthood report gives a more accurate picture of geographic & gender breakdown). Priests are on the average a year older, 27 vs. 26 (and wiser, of course), and even more than the general readership are computer professionals (85% of returned surveys--though if I had counted myself that would drop to 79%). General experience with Usenet is quite high--everyone who responded has had Net access for at least a year. Probably not surprisingly, where the general readership reported about 2-1 that they hadn't had writing published, the figures for Priests are reversed. Whether it's self-selection or Steve's vetting, the Priesthood does seem to have above-average involvement with writing and editing apart from the Oracle. I didn't find much divergence between criteria for a good Oracularity among priests and laity, with one exception: a strikingly high proportion of Priests cited brevity or concision as an important quality in selecting Oracularities (69%, versus about 15% of general readers who explicitly said they disliked overlong ones). No doubt this is because we HAVE to read the !@#$#@$ things, short or long. --At first it might seem to be a paradox that most of the highest-rated and most-often cited Oracularities are moderately to very long in terms of line length. But as a couple of you have said, it's not so much absolute length as density of with and humor that counts. A bad one-liner is forgettable, but a bad 200-liner is excruciating. (By the same token, I think most people would agree that it's much harder for a one-liner to make people roll on the floor laughing the way a first-rate extended comedy can.) Something that's especially interesting to me from what you might call a sociology of literature point of view comes out of the genre preferences of both priests & laity and what the Priests say about knowledge necessary for a good Incarnation. Someone coming to the Oracle for the first time, knowing only that maybe 3/4 of the participants are programmers, sysadmins, etc., might expect a predominance of techie humor along the lines of the "Evolution of a Programmer" joke from r.h.f. a couple of years ago. But this isn't the case. Practically none of the most frequently cited great Oracularities depend on specific knowledge of computer languages, OS's, etc.; if they revolve around computers it's most often more general hacker/Usenet culture, or what you might call intellectual underpinnings--logic games, recursion, metacommentary (note that "meta-oracularity" is the genre that scores #1 both with Priests and in combined Priest-Laity score). Priests rated "literary" culture as a more important form of knowledge than technical or scientific expertise in a good Incarnation (see III.4). ...This paragraph is going to be a little half-digested because it's thought-in-progress, something I need to work out as I put all this together. What the preceding suggests to me is that the Oracle is one of many ways that hacker or semi-hacker culture has over the years "textualized" itself, to use a lit-crit buzzword (as science fiction textualizes science by reinterpreting it with the genre of literary fiction). Hacker humor is incredibly assimilationist--almost every preceding genre is fair game, from the mock-koans in the Stallman-Minsky MIT jokes to the pop-cult Usenet Olympics to... y'all can fill in the blanks. --I don't want to suggest, either, that the Oracle is just a hacker-humor phenomenon, since its scope is a lot broader, though I really like Roger Noe's analysis (ok, I'm breaking anonymity, but he gave permission to quote by name) of its social function in the paragraph that ends with references to Pope and Swift above. --Enough thinking out loud. Some other issues: I have a hard time explaining the variances in "favorite genres" between Priests and laity except to speculate that priests tend to downgrade genres that are easy to do very badly--ordinary readers are spared the worst. (Maybe that's why Priests are less keen on "invented histories," for instance.) Priests tended to be more concerned about possible sexism in the Oracularities. There's some general disagreement about whether the sexism, if it exists, is in rec.humor.oracle or in The Oracle. There's a difference: some people described the Oracle's persona as a caricature of a patriarchal womanizing deity that's held up to ridicule, while others find it an offensive fantasy wish-fulfillment (I have to wonder, though, how many people LIKE marshmallows & leather... :-) ). It's a little more complex than the "God, it's only a _joke_" arguments you get on, say, rec.humor.d, because we're dealing with criteria for deciding whether or not something is meant ironically. --The good news, I guess, is that everyone seems to be tired enough of lame Lisa-Orrie scenarios that the worst ones may die a natural death. OK, enough of that for now, until I get beyond rough-draft thinking. Any & all comments will be appreciated. --DS