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- From: ahbou-mod@duke.edu (best of usenet humor)
- Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet,alt.humor.best-of-usenet.d,alt.answers,news.answers
- Subject: alt.humor.best-of-usenet FAQ
- Followup-To: alt.humor.best-of-usenet.d
- Organization: best of usenet humor
- Approved: ahbou-mod@duke.edu,news-answers-request@mit.edu
- X-Last-Updated: 2002/01/20
- X-Submissions-To: ahbou-sub@duke.edu
- Originator: faqserv@penguin-lust.MIT.EDU
- Date: 04 May 2004 13:01:05 GMT
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-
- Archive-name: best-of-usenet-humor
- Posting-Frequency: semi-monthly
- Maintainer: Shane Travis <travis@sedsystems.ca>
- Last-modified: January 20th, 2002
-
- alt.humor.best-of-usenet Frequently Asked Questions
-
- Submissions go to: ahbou-sub@duke.edu.
- Questions for the moderators go to: ahbou-mod@duke.edu.
-
- New to this update:
- - Q3 and Q4 modified to take into account the new Q14.
- - Q6: Added Information for decrypting posts in Netscape under Mac-OS,
- Messenger Pro, and Pluto; in addition, pointed to a website that
- contains a rot13 decryption tool.
- - Q7: Added some historical clarification.
- - Conflated two questions ("Q8: Is there an e-mail distribution or FTP
- archive?" and "Q9: Can I read by gopher or WWW?") into a single item
- ("Q8: How can I read a.h.b-o-u if I don't have access to Usenet?"),
- because; a) gopher is pretty much a dead issue, and b) the last FTP
- archive we knew about died in 1997. Also added better URLs for Google
- and some information on reading news through e-mail to this section.
- - Renumbering of some points to take into account the removal of Q9.
- - *New* Q14: What do the moderators do if someone is abusing the system?
- - Q15: Added explicit clarification that it is acceptable to use a
- spam-blocking e-mail address when submitting.
- - Added explicit disclaimer and contact information.
- - The usual clean-up and rewording to make things better.
-
-
- Herein lie the answers to the following questions:
-
- Q1: What is alt.humor.best-of-usenet about?
- Q2: How do I submit an article to alt.humor.best-of-usenet?
- Q3: Post <x> wasn't funny . . . why was it posted?
- Q4: My contribution wasn't posted to alt.humor.best-of-usenet. Why?
- Q5: Why do moderators encrypt articles?
- Q6: How can I read an encrypted post?
- Q7: Why the disclaimers in the header and the signature?
- Q8: How can I read a.h.b-o-u if I don't have access to Usenet?
- Q9: How often are articles processed? How are they processed?
- Q10: Which moderator posted a given article?
- Q11: Why are some articles posted multiple times?
- Q12: What if I don't want my writings posted to alt.humor.best-of-usenet?
- Q13: Why does spam show up in alt.humor.best-of-usenet?
- Q14: What do the moderators do if someone is abusing the system?
- Q15: What other things do the moderators think readers should know?
-
-
- Q1: What is alt.humor.best-of-usenet about?
- -------------------------------------------
- The newsgroup alt.humor.best-of-usenet is for the re-posting of original
- Usenet articles from other newsgroups which the submitter believes to be
- humorous, and representative of the best of Usenet humor.
-
- Some moderated newsgroups have a description like "what the moderator
- thinks is funny"; this is not true for a.h.b-o-u. The group is moderated
- to minimize the number of reposts, followups, and unrelated posts. For
- specific rejection criteria, see Q3 and Q4. Note that a.h.b-o-u is
- moderated by a team of moderators.
-
-
- Q2: How do I submit an article to alt.humor.best-of-usenet?
- -----------------------------------------------------------
- One way to submit an article is to post it directly to the newsgroup.
- Save the original article to a file and start a new post to a.h.b-o-u,
- including the article in your post. The article should not be posted,
- but should instead be automatically mailed to the moderator submission
- address, ahbou-sub@duke.edu. If your post actually appears in the
- newsgroup, it is likely that your Internet Service Provider does not have
- a.h.b-o-u listed as a moderated newsgroup. (See Q13 for more information.)
-
- If your news-posting software doesn't handle posts to moderated newsgroups
- correctly, or if you prefer using e-mail, or for whatever other reason,
- you can mail posts directly to ahbou-sub@duke.edu. This is the same
- address as that to which news software automatically forwards all
- submitted posts.
-
- Please do not use tin's "x"post feature; use "m"ail instead. "x"post
- munges the headers a lot, and sometimes cuts out parts of the original
- poster's name, depending on your tin options. If these parts are missing
- your article will fail acceptance criteria.
-
- Do not trim headers or perform any other formatting changes when you
- submit an article, even just to 'clean it up'. While we appreciate the
- thought, you might accidentally remove a needed header or some information
- in the body of the article, either of which could cause your submission to
- be rejected (Q4, #3). Furthermore, such trimming is unnecessary since the
- script used to process submissions does a good job of extracting relevant
- information.
-
-
- Q3: Post <x> wasn't funny . . . why was it posted?
- -----------------------------------------------
- Unlike rec.humor.funny, alt.humor.best-of-usenet is not tightly moderated,
- nor does the moderator-team's judgment about a post's humor affect whether
- or not it gets posted. On the other hand, the group should reflect what
- the contributor believes to be the BEST of usenet humor, not just "a
- sort of funny post".
-
- This means the following might be submitted and subsequently posted:
- (1) Posts that someone thought were humorous, even if not everyone gets it.
- (2) Posts that aren't particularly funny, or are in very bad taste.
- (3) Posts that, while humorous, may be offensive to women, ethnic or
- racial minorities, small rodents, or cartoon characters.
-
- Remember, there's no particular difficulty or honor involved in getting
- your post into alt.humor.best-of-usenet, so it's not necessary to keep
- submitting articles until one is accepted. Choose the best.
-
- Feel free to comment on posts in e-mail to the submitter. You may also
- make yourself heard by posting in alt.humor.best-of-usenet.d, the
- companion discussion group for a.h.b-o-u, which is read by all moderators.
-
- If there are numerous complaints from several parties about the quality
- of submissions from one specific poster (either directly to the moderators
- or in a.h.b-o-u.d), or if it becomes obvious that someone is abusing the
- non-judgemental nature of a.h.b-o-u moderation, the moderators reserve the
- right to blacklist a submitter. For more information on blacklisting,
- refer to Q14.
-
-
- Q4: My contribution wasn't posted to alt.humor.best-of-usenet. Why?
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
- The following will not be posted (well, sometimes the moderators slip up):
-
- (1) Articles sent to any address other than ahbou-sub@duke.edu, or
- an alias (like best@cc.ysu.edu, the old submission address) that
- points to it. IN PARTICULAR, articles posted to the moderator
- contact mail address (ahbou-mod@duke.edu) will not be posted.
-
- (2) Articles that don't arrive with the original 'From:', 'Subject:',
- 'Newsgroups:' or 'Message-ID:' headers. The absence of any of these
- required headers is considered grounds for rejecting the article.
-
- (3) Articles that are not submitted in their entirety. Any submission
- that is found to have been modified by the submitter in any way
- (including editing for humor value) may be rejected. If only a small
- part of the post is funny, then either it's not worth submitting, or
- you should include a "Submitter's note:" indicating where in the post
- the humor can be found.
-
- (4) Articles asking for reposts of old articles. Such requests are best
- handled by a post to alt.humor.best-of-usenet.d or by using one of
- the usenet-related search-engines. If you submit them they go into a
- black hole.
-
- (5) Commercially published articles. Dave Barry's "Fish Tale" about
- blowing up the whale is one such example.
-
- (6) Copier humor. Examples include (but are not limited to): "Super High
- Intensity Training", "Standardized Bonehead Reply Form", "Mouse
- Balls", and "Administratium". These are the sorts of things that get
- hung by the photocopier at work, and everyone who thinks they are
- funny takes a copy for themselves. They are not original, did not
- originate in a newsgroup, and therefore don't qualify. Besides,
- they've probably been posted to rec.humor in the last month.
-
- (7) Urban legends--the $250 cookie recipe, for example. Submissions from
- alt.folklore.urban are fine, but the humor should be in the post
- you're submitting, not the many-times-circulated legend that started
- the topic.
-
- (8) Articles that have been badly mangled by newsreaders, so that the
- original formatting has become illegible. This includes saving a
- thread of articles to a single file, without editing of any sorts,
- and submitting them as one article (see Q15).
-
- (9) Articles submitted only because the .sig is humorous. If the .sig is
- really stupid and it's bigger than 4x80 (the accepted maximum size
- for usenet .sigs) you can post it to alt.fan.warlord instead, as
- long as you make fun of it when doing so. The FAQ for a.f.w. is at
- http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/afw/ and should be read before
- posting in that group.
-
- (10) Articles from people who have been blacklisted. See Q14 for details.
-
- Generally, the moderators don't send non-acceptance notices, but if the
- moderator that gets your submission has questions they'll write back.
-
-
- Q5: Why do moderators encrypt articles?
- ---------------------------------------
- Moderators of a.h.b-o-u do not edit articles for content (except for ads
- and addresses--see Q9). All modification to submissions are done for the
- purposes of readability and uniformity. As a result of this policy, some
- articles are rot13-encrypted because the moderator feels that they may be
- offensive to certain groups. These articles are usually preceded by a
- disclaimer from the moderators advising that the article may be offensive.
-
- Posts are encrypted for the same reason that a bookstore owner might put
- offensive material on a higher shelf--as a courtesy to the customer. Each
- moderator makes individual decisions on which articles to encrypt (tending
- to err on the side of caution after the "Barney the Nazi Dinosaur" incident;
- see Q7).
-
- Numerous moderators makes for numerous standards of what may or may not
- be considered offensive. Generally, moderators try to encrypt articles
- based on previous experiences with the tolerance levels of the cyberspace
- community. If you found an unencrypted posting to be offensive or did not
- understand why a given post was encrypted, please contact the moderators
- via the mailing list so that we can take your opinions into consideration
- for future postings.
-
-
- Q6: How can I read an encrypted post?
- -------------------------------------
- Some articles are rot13-encrypted, and most newsreaders have the decoding
- built-in. The encryption itself is very simple, every letter is shifted
- by 13 alphabetical positions, i.e., a->n, B->O, M->Z, o->b, etc.
- Non-letters are untouched.
-
- Thanks to the various readers that have submitted the following instructions:
-
- rn/trn: ctl-x
- tin: d
- nn: D
- slrn: ESC-r
- vms vnews: x
- gnus: C-c C-r (also: W r)
- anu-news: read/rot13
- Yarn (offline reader): x
- WinVN: ctrl-r
- FreeAgent: ctrl-r
- Agent (version 1.5 or newer): ctrl-3
- Agent (older than v1.5): ctrl-r
- ProNews/2 (an OS/2 newsreader): ctrl-t
- NewsWatcher and variants (MacOS): Edit Menu-->Rot-13
- Most MS-Windows newsreaders: ROT13 from one of the menus
- Messenger, Messenger Pro, or Pluto (RISC OS newsreaders): ctrl-o
- Netscape (Mac, 4.5 or newer): control-click on message, choose from menu
-
- The website http://as.alliancestudio.com/tk/rot13.html has a web based
- rot13 script for people whose newsreaders don't support it or who can't
- figure it out in their newsreader. (Thanks to Kevin Allegood for this
- tip.)
-
-
- If all else fails, pipe it through a script like this (or use this as the
- base for a program of your own design, in whatever language/OS you prefer):
-
- #! /bin/sh
- tr 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'\
- 'nopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLM'
-
- (For the purists that say I should've used 'a-zA-Z' instead, remember
- that some "popular" systems don't have the letters as consecutive values.)
-
-
- Q7: Why the disclaimers in the header and the signature?
- --------------------------------------------------------
- Because the moderators hope to not be forced to resign moderating--or to
- resign their job--under duress, because of postings submitted by others.
- If you think that we're overreacting, or that this couldn't possibly
- happen, go look through Google's archives of a.h.b-o-u.d for January 1994
- and witness the furor that resulted from Doug Sewell posting a submission
- titled "Barney the Nazi Dinosaur".
-
-
- Q8: How can I read a.h.b-o-u if I don't have access to Usenet?
- --------------------------------------------------------------
- Over the years, many people have asked if they can receive a.h.b-o-u
- through e-mail, over the web, or by an FTP site. While the moderators do
- not provide these services themselves, other organizations do strive to
- make Usenet more accessible.
-
- FTP: There is no known FTP archive site of a.h.b-o-u articles at present.
- Anyone hosting (or knowing of) such a beast is requested to contact the
- moderators with the information. Those desiring older articles will
- probably have the best luck using usenet-archiving services such as Google
- Groups; a recent search there showed what seemed to be a complete list of
- articles going back to late July of 1993.
-
- E-mail: It is possible to receive posts from a newsgroup directly to your
- inbox via a service provided by news2mail.com. You will need to register;
- go to to http://www.news2mail.com/alt/humor/best-of-usenet.html and sign
- up.
-
- Web: One of the few remaining no-cost Usenet-to-web portals is Google.
- In addition to providing an archive of posts to Usenet, they also allow
- users to read current postings to most newsgroups. Following this link
- <http://groups.google.com/groups?q=alt.humor.best-of-usenet&hl=en> will
- take you directly to the a.h.b-o-u newsgroup.
-
-
- Q9: How often are articles processed? How are they processed?
- --------------------------------------------------------------
- An article is delivered in a rotating fashion to one of several group
- moderators for alt.humor.best-of-usenet. The length of time from delivery
- to posting is dependent upon the recipient; each moderator does articles
- as they have time, and some clean out their queues more frequently than
- others.
-
- To prepare the articles for posting, most of the original post's headers
- are removed, and the submitter's headers are edited down to the 'From:'
- line and the original 'Subject:' line, which is edited to contain a
- reference to one or more newsgroups where the post was originally found.
-
- Finally a script is run that tacks on the remainder of necessary headers
- and the disclaimers, and the article is posted.
-
- Any .sig files and sign-offs may be removed from the submitted post at the
- discretion of the posting moderator. A particular moderator may choose
- to leave these in if, in his estimation, it adds to the humor value of the
- submission. If you don't want to leave things to chance, make sure to
- include a note saying that the .sig should be kept and explaining why.
-
- Moderators remove or XXX out e-mail, snail-mail and website addresses
- contained within submissions, to protect both themselves and the subject
- of the submission. This removal is routine where the addresses are
- intended to advertise or solicit, and at the discretion of individual
- moderators in all other situations. Submissions which contain multiple
- instances of such addresses may be rejected at the moderator's discretion.
-
-
- Q10: Which moderator posted a given article?
- --------------------------------------------
- All posts to a.h.b-o-u should contain following header line:
-
- X-Posting-Moderator: John Doe
-
- This header may contain a name, an e-mail address, a spam-blocking e-mail
- address, an IP address, etc., but it will be unique to each moderator and
- consistent across all posts by that moderator.
-
-
- Q11: Why are some articles posted multiple times?
- -------------------------------------------------
- When articles are submitted, they go into a queue and are forwarded to one
- of the moderators in a round-robin style (see Q9). If many people submit
- an article, or the same person submits the same article multiple times,
- then it is likely that several different moderators will get copies of
- that article to format and post.
-
- We try and catch the duplicates by reading the newsgroup before posting
- submissions, but we are only human and occasionally make mistakes. Also,
- moderators reside in both North America and Europe; propagation delays
- of several days have been observed between the posting of an article on
- one continent and its arrival on another. This sort of thing makes it
- impossible for even the most careful moderator to catch all the mistakes.
-
- To reduce duplication, the 'Message-ID:' header from the original message
- is now required with each submission. This header, prepended with the
- string 'ahbou=' becomes the new 'Message-ID:' header for the article when
- it is posted to a.h.b-o-u. This means that if an article is posted twice
- by different moderators, the identical 'Message-ID:' headers will ensure
- that the duplicate is thrown away automatically as it reaches each site.
-
-
- Q12: What if I don't want my writings posted to alt.humor.best-of-usenet?
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
- In an attempt to remain compliant with the wishes of the original author
- of a submission, moderators will not approve any submission which has
- any of the following:
- - Inclusion of the googlegroups-blocking 'X-No-Archive: yes' in the
- headers or body of the article,
- - Inclusion of the a.h.b-o-u-blocking, 'X-No-ahbou: yes' in the headers or
- body of the article (capitalized in any fashion), or
- - An explicit message in the .sig which clearly states the author's desire
- that the article not be reposted.
-
- If either 'X-No-Archive' or 'X-No-ahbou' appears in the body rather than
- the header, it will only be recognized as a block if it is formatted as a
- header--that is, on a line by itself and flush against the left margin.
-
- The major drawback in this policy is that it relies on the integrity and
- complicity of the submitters. If the relevant header or portion of the
- signature is removed from the submission, through either ignorance or
- malice, then unless the recipient moderator locates the original article
- (which is neither required nor always possible) he has no way of knowing
- that it was ever there. Thus, while moderators agree to do the best job
- they can to enforce this scheme, there will always be those submissions
- that fall through the cracks.
-
-
- Q13: Why does spam show up in alt.humor.best-of-usenet?
- -------------------------------------------------------
- The newsgroup alt.humor.best-of-usenet is moderated, which means that only
- approved postings should appear in the newsgroup. Unfortunately, some sites
- have reported seeing non-moderated postings in a.h.b-o-u. Unapproved posts
- can take many forms: submissions which were not forwarded to the moderators,
- follow-up articles commenting on a post in a.h.b-o-u, and (most annoyingly)
- spam of all sorts.
-
- It has been suggested that these posts appear in a.h.b-o-u as the result
- of bribes paid to the moderators. The moderators are insulted by this
- insinuation and would like to make it especially clear the amounts offered
- so far have been pitifully insufficient. Realistic proposals only may be
- sent to <ahbou-pension@eey.org>.
-
- Unapproved postings in a.h.b-o-u result from a site-specific breakdown in
- the moderation/approval system for moderated newsgroups. The system has
- two parts: (1) When a user attempts to post an unapproved article to a
- moderated newsgroup, it is instead diverted to the moderators' e-mail
- address; (2) When an unapproved article is offered to a server by a remote
- location, it is rejected. Obviously the system is subject to misadjustment,
- failure and forgery.
-
- If you are seeing unapproved spam in a.h.b-o-u on a regular basis, you may
- wish to take the matter up with the System Administrator of your Internet
- Service Provider. You can usually reach them by directing an e-mail to
- root@[your ISP name] or news@[your ISP name] or postmaster@[your ISP
- name]. Politely let them know that this group is moderated, and have them
- make any inquiries to the moderator mailing list (ahbou-mod@duke.edu).
- If, on the other hand--and this is comparatively rare--the article carries
- forged approval, you may wish to point it out to the originating ISP as the
- user could be in violation of his 'Terms of Service' agreement.
-
- The fact that moderated alt.* newsgroups are relatively uncommon makes it
- all the more likely that an administrator is unaware of the Moderated
- status of a.h.b-o-u. There is always the possibility, however, that your
- ISP--for reasons of idealism, laziness or law (to support its claim to
- be a common carrier and thus not responsible for what it transmits)--
- chooses not to recognize the principle of newsgroup moderation.
-
-
- Q14: What do the moderators do if someone is abusing the system?
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
- In the past, there have been small, isolated abuses of the system by
- individuals sending in many articles with little (or no) humorous value,
- but a few well-placed e-mails and a small application of the clue-by-four
- were usually enough to do the trick. Also, most perpetrators soon tired
- of the game; when everything you submit gets posted, it's not exactly a
- challenge, and they move on to other forms of entertainment. Sadly, some
- people remain impervious to hints both subtle and blatant, and continue
- to send a voluminous deluge of non-humorous submissions to the moderators.
- In an effort to remain a repository of the *best* (i.e. most humorous)
- postings on Usenet, while also remaining true to the guiding principles of
- not passing judgement on the humor of any given submission, the moderators
- of a.h.b-o-u hereby explicitly reserve the right to implement a blacklist.
-
- In order for someone to be blacklisted, their transgressions must be
- either drastic or prolonged; several posts of dubious value within a
- couple of weeks is not enough. Furthermore, inclusion on this list will
- be guided by comments from readers, whether they are received to the
- ahbou-mod mailing address, or read on the a.h.b-o-u.d discussion group.
- Seldom (if ever) will someone be blacklisted solely on the decision of
- the moderation team.
-
- If someone is blacklisted, all posts from that person will be immediately
- rejected, unread. It doesn't matter if the submission in question is
- the funniest thing ever posted to Usenet; by being on the blacklist
- the submitter has lost all rights to tell us about it. This fulfils the
- internal (and FAQ-stated) requirement that submissions not be judged on
- humor value.
-
- When someone is placed on the blacklist, they will be contacted in e-mail
- explaining the situation and the duration of the blacklisting. If there
- is no viable e-mail address for the submitter, a post will be made to
- both a.h.b-o-u and and a.h.b-o-u.d with similar information. Placement
- on the blacklist will last for a period of six weeks, after which time
- the restriction will be lifted and that person's submissions will again
- be recognized by the moderating team. If it becomes necessary to place a
- person on the blacklist a second time, such a measure will be permanent.
-
- Carlos the Beatific, this one's for you.
-
-
- Q15: What other things do the moderators think readers should know?
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
- (1) Submissions that contain more than one article are a hassle. The
- ideal way to submit these is to save the best two or three articles
- of the thread to a file and separate each article by a line of dashes
- or equal signs. If you trim the headers, be sure that you do not
- remove any of those which are mandatory, or the whole submission
- may be rejected.
-
- (2) Posts that use mime base64 encoding, uuencoding, rot13 encoding and
- the like are a pain. Please use standard octet-stream encoding.
-
- (3) If a post is from a commercial source, please inform the moderators
- (ahbou-mod@duke.edu) and one of them will cancel it. We try
- to catch these, but are not always successful.
-
- (4) It's not necessary to PGP-sign your posts. The moderators cut this
- out anyway.
-
- (5) It's perfectly acceptable to use a spam-blocking e-mail address when
- making submissions. All we ask is that you make it decipherable by a
- human so that someone wanting to contact you about said submission can
- do so.
-
- (6) There exists an unmoderated group with a function similar to a.h.b-o-u
- called alt.usenet.reposts. Postings to this group are not restricted
- in any way, and may be merely 'interesting' as opposed to humorous.
-
- (7) The culture of some newsgroups may be such that most regulars would
- prefer that posts from that newsgroup not be submitted to a.h.b-o-u.
- It is requested that submitters be familiar with these requests and
- try to honor them. Reading the FAQ of the group in which you saw the
- post you're submitting is usually enough to be sure.
-
-
- DISCLAIMERS
- ===========
- The URL links listed in this FAQ are deemed to have been correct at the
- time of the latest update, but are not under the control of the a.h.b-o-u
- moderation team and may change at any time. If you find a broken link,
- please contact us at the address listed below and let us know so we can
- fix it.
-
- Mentioning the existence of a service does not constitute endorsement
- of that service or its owners/operators by any member of the a.h.b-o-u
- moderation team.
-
-
- CONTACT INFORMATION
- ===================
- The moderators as a group may be contacted by sending e-mail to
- ahbou-mod@duke.edu. Submissions go to ahbou-sub@duke.edu.
-
-