Subject: How Not to Be an Idiot--r.h FAQ

Welcome to rec.humor.

Contributions to this (draft) FAQ are appreciated.  Flames may be submitted
through my secretary, nemo@dev.null.

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 mongoloid 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.

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 took 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 have probably also 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 GGBJ?
A:  It is the holy grail of rec.humor; everyone looks for it, but it doesn't
    exist.  Of course, those who are easily amused will claim to have it but
    be unable to post it for some lame reason which would fool only algae,
    some species of fungus, and of course you.

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 realize 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.

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.

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.
       * 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 IGNORE 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 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 a posting 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

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appendix A:  List of sources of lists and other miscellany.

        The Canonical List of Canonical Lists:
                          anonymous ftp to pc10868.pc.cc.cmu.edu, or 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
              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
-- 
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Johnson"            | Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at  |
| johnson@wes.mot.com  |                 least two to one.                   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Disclaimer:  If Motorola agreed with what I said, I'd get paid a lot more. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
