From rec.humor.oracle.d Tue Jul 26 09:57:16 1994 Xref: news.cs.indiana.edu news.groups.reviews:41 rec.humor.oracle.d:2120 rec.humor.d:10650 rec.humor:157455 Path: news.cs.indiana.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!zip.eecs.umich.edu!quip.eecs.umich.edu!jimj From: jfurr@acpub.duke.edu (Joel K. Furr) Newsgroups: news.groups.reviews,rec.humor.oracle.d,rec.humor.d,rec.humor Subject: REVIEW: rec.humor.oracle Followup-To: news.groups.reviews Date: 22 Jul 1994 14:26:24 -0400 Organization: Send mail to majordomo@acpub.duke.edu and say 'subscribe netstuff' to get on the new net.collectibles mailing list. Approved: grouprev+@pitt.edu Message-ID: <3134qn$1ke@zip.eecs.umich.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: quip.eecs.umich.edu Originator: jimj@quip.eecs.umich.edu Newsgroup: rec.humor.oracle Moderator: kinzler@cs.indiana.edu (Steve Kinzler) Description: humorous questions and answers Related-groups: rec.humor.oracle.d Reviewer: jfurr@acpub.duke.edu (Joel Furr) Review-Date: 7/22/94 A common question on rec.humor, rec.humor.d, news.groups, and elsewhere is "why is rec.humor.funny so BORING?" The answer, of course, is that the moderator posts what she receives, and if unfunny stuff is received, unfunny stuff will be posted. The deeper answer is, "if you find it boring, why don't you go elsewhere?" An excellent choice for an "elsewhere" to go to is the moderated newsgroup rec.humor.oracle. Rec.humor.oracle is home to digests of questions and answers submitted to the Usenet Oracle, a mail- server program running at cs.indiana.edu (the Oracle itself is oracle@cs.indiana.edu). The Oracle stores questions asked it by participants and sends these questions out to other participants for answers, requiring a participant to answer a question for each question the participant sends in. All questions eventually receive an answer, as notices will go out if too many questions pile up asking participants to simply answer questions rather than sending one in. The assumption of the system is that the Usenet Oracle, an all-seeing and all-knowing being, will ultimately be the one answering any question you send in, incarnating itself in the flesh of some anonymous participant elsewhere on the net. Now, how do you get the digests of these questions and answers to be _funny_, since after all that's what so many people find missing from rec.humor.funny? The answer is that each question and answer pair is sent to one of the Oracle Priests, volunteers who review the questions and answers and select those they think are especially funny for the digests. Once ten have been selected, a digest is published to the newsgroup. Then, the readers VOTE on the posts, giving them a vote of 1 for not funny at all to 5 for very, very funny. These votes are sent, once tabulated, to the people who wrote the questions and answers and to the priests that selected these questions and answers for the digests to give them feedback on whether the readers of rec.humor.oracle find the stuff they write or select funny. That's how the system works on paper. How does it work in RL? Pretty well. Unfortunately, some days you may get a lot of extremely boring answers sent back to questions tou sent in to the Oracle, hoping for a nice response back. The Priests say that 90% or more of the submitted questions and answers are lousy, sometimes more. It's up to you to make sure that your contributions are worthwhile, and thus, set an example for the people on the other end of the interface who either answer your questions or provide questions for you to answer. There are some conventions among regular participants that I as a reader find annoying. Among these are the tradition of ZOT!ting anyone who fails to include a grovel (oh, mighty Oracle, whose lice I am unworthy to lick, etc. etc) in their question, the perpetual references to the Oracle's sexy but brainless girlfriend, Lisa, and the computer-geek style responses which respond to a normal question with a simulated UNIX man page. The ZOT! especially is the last refuge of the bad Incarnation -- get a question you don't feel competent to answer, and hell, just ZOT! the poor questioner. Saves you from having to think. However, these black marks are just provided for some perspective. 99% of the time, the Digests *are* quite funny and well worth reading, especially when you recognize questions or answers you submitted among those in the Digests. It's a nice experience slaving over a good answer and then seeing it voted excellent by the readers of rec.humor.oracle. A companion group to rec.humor.oracle is rec.humor.oracle.d, a group which serves as a place to ask questions about the Oracle and to kibitz about the various Oracularities digests. Read rec.humor.oracle! It's one of the best alternatives to the old stale jokes of rec.humor.funny you're likely to find on USENET. -- Joel Furr(ian): Armenian crook/criminal/wacko, Big Kahuna of alt.fan.lemurs, Moderator of alt.folklore.suburban and comp.society.folklore, Co-Moderator of soc.history.war.world-war-ii, and purveyor of cool net.collectibles. Will create newsgroups for food. Order your Green Card Lawyers shirt today. [moderators note -- Yes, this should have been in only rec.humor.d, not rec.humor. Sorry. Followups _are_ being kept from the group. -jJ] ========= Mail questions and comments about this review to the reviewer, or post them to the reviewed group. Ask about other groups in news.groups.questions. 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