Archive-name: tasteless/faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly Last-Modified: 2004/05/03 Time-estimate: The FAQ takes about twenty minutes to read. Disclaimer: Contains dirty words, foul thinking. You are hereby warned. See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge WELCOME TO ALT.TASTELESS! Monthly Posting v. 1.16 POST QUALITY. ENCOURAGE QUALITY. DISCOURAGE CRAP. BE ENTERTAINING, BE CREATIVE, OR SHUT THE FUCK UP. Editor's Note: Anybody who emails me a 'remove' or 'unsubscribe' message or sends me a nice little note telling me how I need to get help will at least be laughed at or, at the editor's discretion, will have their puckered little missive posted to the newsgroup for abuse from the masses. Consider yourself warned. "Get cancer. Die." -- Herry 1) What is alt.tasteless? A newsgroup devoted to tasteless phenomena in all its forms. A place for people with a twisted and sick sense of humour. In alt.tasteless we like to get into the details. We want the feel of it, the smell of it, the stench of it, every little rotten and puss-oozing detail. And then, of course, some rough pictures of it in alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless or alt.tasteless.pictures. You should never post binaries to alt.tasteless, because it might cause some news admins to kill the group at their site. Let me rephrase that: you should never...EVER...post binaries to alt.tasteless, because it pisses off the regulars no end and we will hunt you down and kill you, slowly, painfully, and with great and lasting pleasure. Then we'll post a highly detailed description of our activities to alt.tasteless and pictures of your flayed and squicked corpse to alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless and alt.tasteless.pictures. "Spam is not allowed and, if you do it here, we will kill you, sell your wife and children into slavery, burn down your house, and plow your fields and sow them with salt so that nothing will ever grow there again." --your friendly neighborhood misanthrope Short jokes have their forum in alt.tasteless.jokes; take advantage of that. A cross-post is rarely wise. Some examples of popular alt.tasteless posts: -- The joys of raping: epileptics / the dead / pregnants / minors / small furry animals with big wet eyes. -- "The worst (scrotal/nasal/rectal) operation I've ever had." -- The joys of: vomiting / farting / pissing / shitting / picking your nose / masturbating / menses / giving birth to children / sweating / slobbering. -- Tasteless sex acts. "Share your cysts, your zits, your tits, your ingrown pubes with us. Tantalize us with pussy problems, tit trials, butt bleeding, femme frivolities, gigantic grogans, and amazing farts. Show us you're one of us." --Mr. Crank But tastes differ even within the tasteless kingdom. Some like a story of a little boy sitting on the throne shouting "Me go plop-plop! Me go plop-plop!" Others favor the weeping spastic on the toilet, desperately struggling not to miss the bowl, screaming, "Me go plop-plop! Me go plop-plop!" The first is an example of a simple story of taking a dump. The second brings more sophistication and delicacy into the sordid affair, and is thus labeled as being more "intelligent and mature," the label apparently chosen because innocent children (or innocent adults, for that matter) will not find it funny, except perhaps the "plop-plop!" bit. The difference was put to a debate a while ago, which ended thus: 2) I'm confused. Could someone explain the concept of intelligent, mature tastelessness? Original, non-monotonous material. Factual, based on fact, or fictional; vividly graphic or repulsively image provoking. Command of spelling and grammar at least to the level of comprehensibility. Examples of non-tasteless, time-wasting, useless, boring cunt crap: uninspiring fiction, recycled fraternity jokes, excessive pointless profanity, vanilla sex, elementary playground-type "eww gross" urban legends, license plates, funny names, 90% of all flaming; "Because his dick tastes of blood," "Hearing the pelvic bone snap," "Oops, I farted," and all the other short jokes; Exploding Whale (true story), Scrotum Self-Repair (not), Flaming Gerbil Up The Ass (not), The Mormon Guide to Overcoming Masturbation, and plenty of others. Post your own creations. Get the old stuff at our archives, and tire of it in the comfort of your own living room. Additionally, please note that this is not alt.tacky or alt.bad.taste. This means that merely posting "Kenny G., ha ha ha" is not enough; you will generally have to couple it with something really tasteless to get people's attention. Yes, we have heard zillions of puke and huge bowel movement stories, but don't let that keep you from posting one of your own. The competition should just raise your ambitions and thus the quality of your story. Thus, having sussed out that your post is too interesting for sci.med, too intelligent for alt.stupidity, too sick for alt.sex.bestiality or alt.torture, too twisted for talk.bizarre, too funny for rec.humor or alt.tasteless.jokes, you choose alt.tasteless and post. The group is unmoderated and the subject line of your article will be seen by approximately 140,000 people worldwide. 3) WOW! What will happen next? -- Some will ignore it. -- Some will read part of it, then skip to the next article. -- Some will read the whole thing. -- Maybe one or more people will reply to you telling you what they thought of the article. They might even follow it up if they have something to add. This is sadly the ideal picture. Sometimes people will follow-up even though they have nothing to add, though they think they do. Further, some very good tasteless posts generate absolutely no response, or, rather, they generate the same response you'd get if you wrote it on a piece of paper and flushed it down the toilet. 4) Then why post? Because you fucking well feel like it! 5) But this stuff is disgusting / immoral / dangerous / etc.! "It is YOUR God, They are YOUR rules, YOU burn in hell." --Uncle Brian (d. 2000) Every now and then some dickless weasel constipated on his own religion or set of values will bother the noble freethinkers in AT with his standard "This is not funny" drivel. Best thing is to ignore him. Next best is to mail him with the likewise standard reply "Then why do you read it?" A follow-up is not a good solution here, unless you choose to flame him to ashes in such an inspired way that the readership of alt.tasteless also benefits. This is a very very hard thing to do. If, however, you do so, YOU ARE THEN STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO SET THE FOLLOW-UP TAG TO: 'Followup-To: alt.flame.' After all, we have important work to do here. This formal introduction may make alt.tasteless seem like a terribly boring place, but all the stuff that's been recommended (not commanded!) thus far has been done so in order to make the newsgroup more chaotic and interesting--not less. There's nothing more boring than three-month cycles of repeated semi-tasteless garbage. It's our hope that you'll now feel WELCOME IN ALT.TASTELESS! Remember: POST QUALITY. ENCOURAGE QUALITY. DISCOURAGE CRAP. BE ENTERTAINING, BE CREATIVE, OR SHUT THE FUCK UP. That's the simple secret to keeping alt.tasteless a living forum and community. We'd rather see twelve good posts in a year from your keyboard than twelve crap ones a week. You'll even get more respect that way. Every post of yours should contain some element of tastelessness in it. That's the reason that people come to visit AT--not for your personality, not for the profound wit you suppose yourself endowed with. AT ain't a blog, it ain't a chat room. There are plenty of other resources on the Internet for that sort of thing. We want the real stuff, the good stuff. If in the event you find yourself posting a quick follow-up to a message--a one-off, or some other sort of quick-and-dirty post-- it is INCUMBENT UPON YOU that you include an "Obligatory Tasteless" (ObT) passage to your post. This typically goes at the end of the post, but there are no hard-and-fast rules here. The simple idea is that no post of yours shall fly through the ether to AT without containing, at least potentially, some good content in it. In the ObT, tell us about your recent bowel movement, the decaying carcass of your dog, the scent of the woman in the pig-fattening pen beside you at work. Whatever. Just make an effort. Do it right. There's enough ineptitude in the world; we don't need more in AT. When you read a good post, don't forget to thank people for amusing you. That's the only payment they get. And don't be afraid to tell badly behaving idiots to shape up. That's probably the only education they'll ever get. If they can't take the heat, they don't belong. 6) My site doesn't carry alt.tasteless and/or alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless. What can I do about it? "With modern GUI's like WIN2K/XP and Mac OS X, even a spastic ring-tailed lemur with poor eyesight and Downs' syndrome should have little difficulty navigating the Internet and finding desired information." --Citizen Ted Best bet: Grovel at the feet of your news admin. Or get a different ISP. If that doesn't work you'll have to read/post to it from another site. Once upon a time there was a FAQ about how you could access banned newsgroups, but sites like Google and Supernews have pretty much made that obsolete. And if that's not enough of a hint, then you wouldn't survive AT for long. 7) Where are the archives? AT isn't fully archived, but there are a few spots of seething suppuration here and there that you may want to check out. On the web, see: Juan Rico's Tasteless Toilet (with content in part inherited from Jaydog): <http://tasteless.teneight.com> Lorri's Twisted Shrine: <http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Disco/3645/> Dave and Kristen Hall's Stuff: <http://www1.iwvisp.com/thehalls/tasteless/index.html> . . . Chris Pando's archives: <http://pando.org/misc/at-archives/at-archive-1992a.html> <http://pando.org/misc/at-archives/at-archive-1993a.html> . . . Mr. S. Pisser: <http://www.mindspring.com/~squicker/> "Homicide Heroes": <http://www.apollo12.webfusion.co.uk/Crime/homicide.htm> "Save the Choad" at: <http://www1.iwvisp.com/thehalls/tasteless/tasteless.html> There's the AT Awards page: <http://www.teethboard.com/atawards/> . . . and the alt.tasteless Dead Pool page: <http://www.ila.com/atdp03.htm> or, if that official page for 2003 is still offline/outdated, check: <http://www.angelfire.com/nv/scharff/deadpool2003.html> Citizen Ted is coordinating the 2004 Dead Pool; the official page can be found at: <http://www.citizented.com/atdp2004.html> There's also usually a Tasteless Secret Santa (see below) page, but it's down at the moment. Don't forget about the possibilities of searching Google groups to unlock the mysteries of the Great Old Ones and otherwise reveal ancient alt.tasteless history. 8) What about flames . . . ? "Oh, and welcome to alt.tasteless: the rabid doberman of the Alt hierarchy." --StukaFox Tedious, aren't they? Some can elevate it to an art form (alt.flame/talk.bizarre '91 and '92, alt.peeves '93 and '94). If you can too, flame away. But beware; we've got a few regular denizens that are professionals. You may well live to regret flaming in a.t. 8.1) . . . trolls. . . ? Excerpted from the Internet Jargon File: troll v., n. 1. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or,the post itself. (...) 2. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list,or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Talk about tedium. Regulars in alt.tasteless are not known for their tolerance of cluelessness, and can therefore become prime troll-bait. The weary old troll in the form of a "how do I unsubscribe from this *disgusting* mailing list?" message still snares a few each time it shows up, every now and then. Other trolls are somewhat more sophisticated, but their goal and purpose remains the same: to draw a predictable and shopworn response. It's not hard to recognize them, so the responsible AT reader should know better than to encourage them. We've got too much noise and not enough signal to warrant a less-than-original torture flame. We prefer you not give them the satisfaction. There's a general rule of thumb with regard to reponding to trolls, crossposts, and such in alt.tasteless. That rule of thumb is as follows: flaming crossposters and/or neophytes, --or ANYONE, for that matter--is perfectly all right as long as you understand that you're probably not going to change a thing in their posting habits, and thus you should post/flame for the benefit of others potentially reading the thread, i.e., you should make your response as amusing and interesting as possible. But being amusing and/or interesting and/or creative is what posting to alt.tasteless is all about, isn't it? And yet it's so very hard to do it well. And then there's so much tard-like behavior out there and so little time and energy to address it all the way you'd really like to. Thus, feeding the trolls is usually considered pointless, boring, and a sign of clue deficiency. So, unless you want to make it your life's work to combat the trolls, don't. Instead, go read the alt.syntax.tactical FAQ at <http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html> Make sure that in addressing the problem, you don't become more of a problem. 8.2) ...and newsgroup invasions? "Hot $hit on Toast, we're now getting crossposts from alt.tasteless, the absolute cesspool of USENET!" --brucewolfe@erols_.com, in alt.support.arthritis Freaking out normal people with our hideousness has a long tradition in alt.tasteless. The first recorded AT NI was Rauli Lauhanen's one-man invasion of talk.abortion, talk.rape and soc.motts, Dec 13th 1991. He told alt.tasteless that he was about to invade the faggot/lesbian/religious fundamentalist groups using his new account. On Dec 17th he posted a series of highly offensive rants/stories, the first being: From: cunt@cc.tut.fi (Lauhanen Rauli) Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.rape,soc.motss, alt.tasteless Subject: Re: Homosexuality and Rape Summary: Also women have the right to be raped ! They all got cancelled, and he lost the account (temporarily). Rec.pets.cats was first targetted as a deserving havoc spot in March '93, and war was declared. On the front line we found: From: markp@noncomf.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Mark A. Pitcher) Newsgroups: alt.tasteless Subject: WAR PROGRESS REPORT: A.T. vs R.P.C. But the hardest (and most publicized) battle was that in September instigated by Adam Steele (adam@cs.concordia.ca), with Trashcan Man (tobio@panix.com) doing the hardest work, and losing his student account in the process. Read all about it on Wired's web site at: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.05/alt.tasteless.html> Before embarking on an invasion consider whether it'll be fun enough to be worthwhile. Usually it won't. If you're new to AT, you may also want to consider whether the anal rape you're likely to get at the hands of the AT regulars will be worth it. If you're truly interested in invasions, wander over to alt.troll or alt.syntax.tactical. And leave AT out of it. Actually, alt.tasteless is invaded from time to time by clueless newbies, some being professional clueless newbies who take pleasure in pushing the buttons that starts stupid, tiring flame wars with the same old tired, nominally tasteless imagery. If you want to punish them, do it silently somewhere where you won't look like a fool. Old timers know how to do this. 9) What is this shit-eating picture that everybody keeps referring to? "Well, everyone here already knows I don't like spoo in the face. But that's an aesthetic thing." --Lorri R. Probably hb2a.gif or hb6.gif, the most common names for two pictures of a woman pinching a loaf into the mouth of a man. They're sort of an alt.tasteless idol, and they appear under many names. But they're quite good, actually. lortbg.gif is the small version that can be used as a background on a home page. Of course, nowadays you can find all sorts of stuff like this on the web with minimal searching. 10) Aren't you all just a bunch of 15-year-old wankers? A 1992 survey fixed the average a.t subscriber's age at 27 years and a 1993 survey fixed the average weight at 200 pounds (but that's an altogether different matter). A 1994 survey then corrected the average age to 27.53 years, and the average weight to 184.8 pounds. 89.4% considered themselves male. All were wankers, and 92.1% admitted to having beaten off in a public place. The 1997 survey updated things still further--the average age of an AT subscriber then was 31 years old, with a professed range from 17 to 55 and an average weight of 193.1 pounds. 88.1% were male last time they checked. And an even 100% admitted to wanking an average of every 1.143 days. Assuming an average of 1.5 teaspoons of spoo shot each time, that means the typical AT male spills 79.8 ounces of joy juice every year. So, to answer your question: yep, we're a bunch of wankers. 11) Well, what about the alt.tasteless Who's Who? How come it hasn't been updated recently? (Or, alternately) I want to update it! Periodically, someone runs across the old alt.tasteless Who's Who FAQ, a list of Great Old Ones from circa 1993. The question then is posed, "Why don't we update this?" There usually follows two or three weeks of flames discussing the pros and cons of having a Who's Who. We -always- decide that a Who's Who FAQ is a sure sign of a newsgroup that is so full of in-jokes and cliques and self-absorption that it has lost contact with whatever made it interesting in the first place (ever try to read rec.humor.oracle.d?). In alt.tasteless, we're all a bunch of unwashed heathens. Everyone's an outsider, having been relegated here through the hatred and disdain of the rest of the newsgroups. Yes, there are AT celebrities; we have regulars who are well-respected in AT and roundly hated throughout the rest of Usenet. But this does not grant them any special status. In alt.tasteless, you're only as good as your last post. We are hyenas; we are vultures; we are cannibals. In alt.tasteless, we eat our own. With that, we present: 11b) The Official Alt Dot Tasteless Who's Who, by Tasteless Ginny: -- Did you read here? -- Did you post here? -- Do you know how to spell your name? -- Have you picked your ears, ass or nose in the past 48 hours and smelled, tasted, or shown off your fingers to someone for them to smell or taste? OK, you're in. Unless you're not. 12a) What's the 'Tasteless Secret Santa'? The "Tasteless Secret Santa Gift Exchange" (or, more simply, "TSS") is a cozy seasonal activity. Past TSS coordinators have included: -- Rob North, who took over from -- Dave Hall, who took over from -- Pamelush TSS is about sharing tastelessness across geographic and political borders, and involves you sending a package of, er, "goodies," to someone you may or may not have ever met. The coordinator usually starts accepting reservations to participate around August, and closes the reservations mid-October or so. Watch the newsgroup for more information. 12b) How do I sign up to be someone's TSS, and to have a TSS assigned to me? RobNorth coordinated TSS for 2003. His instructions were: From: tsshq@shaw.ca (Nanook of the North) Newsgroups: alt.tasteless Subject: TSS Registration Alert Date: 7 Aug 2003 15:28:47 -0700 Greetings. It's that time of year again. Sort of. I'm posting this now because I will be inaccessible until the end of September. So, here's the deal. If you want to participate in this year's Tasteless Secret Santa gift exchange, you must do the following: * Fill out the form below. Sorry, I ain't got the webpage stuff. * Send it to rag63@hotmail.com. (Don't just reply to this; the 'From:' e-mail address of this note is Tango Uniform.) The 'Subject:' MUST be 'TSS'. If it isn't, it goes into the junk. Hotmail's filters are ruthless. * Send it before October 1, 2003. * Because I won't be accessing e-mail, I won't be responding immediately. When I get back, I will send an acknowledgment e-mail to everyone who sent in a registration. I will then allow a week's grace for lateniks or screwups to try again. * On or around Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving, I will send out the assignments. Any complaints? I don't care, I won't hear them. This alert will NOT be reposted. If someone misses this and they're too fuckin' dumb to use groups.google.com, they don't deserve to live. Over and out. -RobNorth ============================================================ OFFICIAL TSS REGISTRATION FORM (email to rag63@hotmail.com) Name: Email address: Mailing address: Sex (upon birth): Shirt size: Underwear size: Length of choad: Bra size: Do I have a sexual preference? Piercings/Tattoos: Bizarre allergies: Do I have a VCR? If so, what format (NTSC, PAL or SECAM): Do I have a DVD player? If so, what region: Tell me about your computer... Processor: Operating System: Am I willing to ship my gift overseas? Recognizing that some folks have squeemish spouses, nosy bosses, etc., please indicate any problems you may have in receiving your gift, and the required workaround, so you may get your goodies without undue pain or professional embarrassment: Final Comments (any additional information your TSS might like to know): ============================================================ TSS for 2004 isn't organized yet. Check back later. 13) AT awards? I've heard something about awards being given out, and of people struggling to be Mr. Alt.Tasteless. That is the case. Every year we try to decide who to honor for their efforts in the group. During the year you're encouraged to save nominations grouped in the following categories: -- Mr. A.T. - the most tasteless male among us, period. -- Ms. A.T. - the most tasteless female among us, period. -- Mr. Rookie - the most tasteless male newcomer to the group. -- Ms. Rookie - the most tasteless female newcomer to the group. -- A.T. Poster Child - the most tasteless public figure of '02. -- A.T. Fiction - best fictional story of the year. -- A.T. Non-Fiction - most tasteless true story, either public (e.g. news story) or private. -- A.T. Real Life - most tasteless personal experience by an AT contributor. -- A.T. Quote - anything short enough to fit into a .sig. -- A.T. Flame - the most vicious, biting and/or effective flame posted in AT -- A.T. Concept - the most revolting concept (either real or theoretical) presented in AT -- A.T. Product - the most tasteless commercial product. -- A.T. Work Of Art - URLs, GIFs, software, etc. -- A.T. Poetry - the vilest, most imaginative prose, as posted in AT during 2002. -- A.T. Lifetime Achievement, aka "The Paul Ess Memorial" - a tribute to an AT poster's entire body of work over several years. Most often awarded posthumously, e.g. Paul Ess, Uncle Brian, Vinnie Jordan, but living denizens are also eligible. Near election time someone steps typically forward and asks for nominations. For 2003, our hosts were Omicron Delta Pineapple and Jonathan Blaque. See <http://teethboard.com/atawards/> for more info. 14) Is there an AT masonic-style greeting? Yup. Pretend to wipe your ass, then give the fellow your hand. The call for distress is "Will nobody help the widow's son fuck his dead father!?" This will usually give you all the help you want. The tough guys greet each other by blowing their noses onto their hands, then shaking with them, with the collective snots being squished out around the edges. After separation, the licking of the hand is optional. Only known to be in use in Australia. "There are *dozens* of real-life Walking Time Bombs lurking in and around these parts -- living, breathing human nightmares that might just leap at the chance to call your bluff." --Vomit Boy It has been known to happen that AT'ers on various coasts of the US and in other places worldwide may gather together for reasons best not mentioned here. We've seen everything from a trip to the strip-joint for two AT'ers from the same area to a full-blown SquickFest with AT'ers from thousands of miles away showing up. It's always all nice and friendly and stuff until, suddenly, it's not. While for some of the regular readers and posters, AT is a place to check out some gross-making fiction, there are others who are very serious. Here's a secret: many of the people who stick around AT -are not very nice-. No, really. Sure, there's plenty of made-up crap floating around. However, most of the better stuff is 100% true. We really do have people here who eat shit. We really do have a gay skinhead who has fucked or been fucked by over 1,200 men. We really do have people who have done hard jail time for assault. We have members to whom extreme torture is a sexual thrill. We have members who have committed rape, molested children, killed animals just for the fun of it. As a general rule, WE ARE NOT MAKING THIS STUFF UP. So if you decide you want to meet someone in real life that you met on alt.tasteless (or anywhere else on the Internet, for that matter), make damn sure you know what you're getting into. The loose collection of nutbags that comprises alt.tasteless will not be responsible for what happens if you decide to meet some random shithole in a bar and you end up in multiple suitcases. We will, however, laugh about it. 15) I want to become an alt.tastelesser? How? Possess, use, and flaunt a sick sense of humor. Cultivate disgusting personal habits. Write about them, and post the writings to a worldwide network for strangers to marvel over. Get as much as you can from the web archives. Share them with, and thus alienate, all your friends. Let's face it, though. If you don't find yourself reading through the archives when you should be working, hanging on every word, staying up late at night to Google up pictures of maggots and piss and shit and bloated decaying corpses in all their wondrous variations; if you don't feel in yourself a thrill as you stare open-mouthed at conjoined twins' fetuses preserved in formaldehyde, if you don't feel a sense of awe and inspiration in reading about rare and debilitating diseases; if reading about the Crusades and adventures of Vlad the Impaler fail to bring a happy tear to your eye; if the wonder, mystery, and magnificence of the Congo floor maggot is lost upon you; if you don't get a feeling that all that crap -means something-, then you probably shouldn't be reading alt.tasteless in the first place, let alone posting to it. 16) I'd like to have an academically waterproof excuse for reading AT. Over the years, various AT'ers have recommended texts whose material perhaps meshes with the AT'ers scholarly and literary appetites. Those who have provided such recommendations are for the most part no longer around to defend their choices, so the list below is presented with no guarantees or warranties, implied or explicit. a) A good place to start might be the FDA/CFSAN Defect Action Handbook, located at: <http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dalbook.html> This is the book that sets out exactly what kind of surprises are legally allowed in your food; things like the amount of fly eggs in tomato juice, the amount of rodent feces in hot dogs, and so on. Great dinner reading. b) A hardcover option might be _Kritik der zynischen Vernunft_, written by Peter Sloterdijk. It might be translated to your language. The book is about cynicism, the ancient and wonderful approach to life. It's well-written, funny and astoundingly learned. Adorno in a good mood. [Editor's note: a comment from a Deutscher correspondant: "The book is mostly boring; YMMV."] c) _Rabelais and his World_, by Mikhail Bakhtin. It's not an easy read, but it tells you about life in the Middle Ages, a wonderful age comparable to our own on many counts. d) _Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition_, by Barry R. Burg (New York U. Press). Describes how most if not all of the pirates and buccaneers who sailed the Caribbean from 1650 to 1700 had sex with each other. 17) What are some additional resources for me to get to know alt.tasteless a little bit better? Alt.tasteless is a strange and wondrous place: an enigma, a contradiction. It denizens are attracted to its mildew-covered halls because, generally speaking, they eschew and despise order, tidiness, formality, rectitude, probity, authority, and pretty much anything that thrives under the Light (preferring to worship Darkness, Chaos, Entropy, Cynicism, Pestilence, and Decay). On the other hand, you won't find a bunch of people swifter to apply the cat o' nine tails to your glistening plump pneumatic buttocks when you fuck up. Nor will you find people who enjoy it as much, often achieving orgasm upon hearing you shriek and holler. With that in mind, it might be a good idea to review Internet etiquette. The information below applies to Usenet as a whole and the Internet in general, not just alt.tasteless. If you are at all interested in not pissing off everyone you meet on Usenet, you'll at least browse the following sites. Also, make a habit of reading everything in news.announce.newusers at least once a year, and browse through news.answers occasionally. As a minimum, you probably ought to read the following documents in news.announce.newusers, particularly if you are new to Usenet: -- What is Usenet? -- What is Usenet? A second opinion. -- Rules for posting to Usenet -- Hints on writing style for Usenet -- A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette If you don't like to read so much, you shouldn't be on the Internet, so piss off. Web sites of interest include: The Usenet Info Center: <http://sunsite.unc.edu/usenet-i/> The news.admin.net-abuse FAQ: <http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html> The rn Killfile FAQ: <http://www.faqs.org/faqs/killfile-faq/> The Internet FAQ Archives: <http://www.faqs.org/> 18) What is it with the "Me-Go-Plop-Plop" stories? The mysteries of the anal cavity and the alimentary canal are without end. Verily, hundreds, thousands of stories, narratives, fables, anecdotes, etc. related to shit have been posted to AT through the years. It's something everyone can relate to, of course, and there's nothing that brightens up an otherwise gloomy day than crankin' up AT and seeing that someone has posted an exceptionally good "Plop Plop" story. But there again, there's that "quality" issue. In AT, we've heard them all, or at least think we have. We're probably not gonna get real excited hearing that, simply, you shat your pants during lunchtime today. How trite. We'd like something a little bit different or unusual, please, maybe a little twisted or bizzare. It's a bad idea to think that simply because YOU have shat your pants today, everyone else out there is equally overjoyed. In fact, so many "plop plop" stories have been posted to AT over the years, that, in a sort of meta-analytic fashion, we've been able to distill the essence of what most such stories are composed of. Consider this important study by Griffin Moss: SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY: A MAP OF THE COMMON SHIT STORY ------------------------------------------------------------ [In the style of Mad-Libs(tm)] Tools needed: Thesaurus Basis in fact (increasingly optional) Instructions: As you write your story, follow along in the example below. When your story begins to follow the pattern of the example precisely, go back and find where the parallellism began. Choose that point as the place from which you need to begin editing your story. If you cannot achieve even the slightest departure from the form below, then one of two conditions exists- A) Your story is, in actuality, "URBAN LEGEND." Abandon this effort and start anew another day. B) Your story lacks sufficient basis in fact and relies too heavily on exaggeration to achieve an acceptable level of tastelessness for posting. Abandon this effort and move to a more appropriate NG. FORMAT OF STANDARD SHIT POST: *ObT:(as if) *"The other day,"<--------vague temporal reference. *"I was in [a place far removed from a toilet]."<----The "RUB" *"When I felt the need to take a [multiple adj], [inapropriate use of adj], [sim.noun for "excrement"] *"But I couldn't [get to a bathroom] because [excuse]." *"I [hurried while experiencing intense impacted discomfort in the nethers]." *Then I [got quickly to a toilet and/or lost control in my pants] >>>If X makes it to the toilet in time continue, if not, end story here]<<< *"I proceeded to [adv.] [verb] out of my [adj.] so violently that [something messy happened that got all over my ass] *"The [smell] was [adj.] [adj.] [adj.] [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] *"I [vomited/nearly vomited] all over [myself and/or everything in the vicinity] >>>If X vomits, begin tangent of similar form.<<< *"I didn't flush. I left it there for everyone to enjoy." The End Hopefully this will help some of you who may be experiencing coming up with fresh shit. -Griffin Moss <feeble-attempt@profoundity.edu> ------------------------------------------------------------ 19) This FAQ has a lot of big words in it. I don't understand. Can't you just give me the gist of what I should remember about alt.tasteless? Like, in fifteen words or less? That's easy: POST QUALITY. ENCOURAGE QUALITY. DISCOURAGE CRAP. BE ENTERTAINING, BE CREATIVE, OR SHUT THE FUCK UP. 19) Well, then, end of FAQ. -QUALITY CONTROL DIVISION- -ALT TASTELESS INDUSTRIES- -2004- User Contributions:
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Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:12 PM
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