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
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York


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 <ZOT!>, 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