RULES AND REGULATIONS

** The following are the goals of HUMOR:
1. To provide a daily average of 10-20 substantial examples of humor.
2. To provide a diversity of humor: sources, forms, and subjects.
3. To provide freedom of expression for contributors and protection of sensitivities for readers.

** The following are the rules of HUMOR:
1. Only substantial examples of humorous material should be posted to this list.
   1. Give priority to current humor.
   2. Classic humor from the past is welcomed.
   3. When posting from another source, cite the source when credit is due.
   4. Comments, witty retorts go to the poster, not to HUMOR.
   5. Pease do not re-print lines from HUMOR articles to HUMOR.
   6. Posting a significant funny list is okay; adding to a list is tiresome; forward additions to the original poster.
   7. Computer programming humor should be avoided except when it can be enjoyed by end-users.
   8. Riddles should be humorous and posted with their answers.
   9. Please do not publish ASCII art either in the body of the post or the signature file.
   10. Signature files added by an e-mail service are unavoidable; sig files added by the poster, unless dealing directly with humor & provided for information, are unnecessary.
   11. Any and all forms of advertising are strictly prohibited.
2. The subject should be clearly identified in the subject line.
3. When there is potentially insensitive or offensive content (topics, themes, or words), a warning is required. Examples: <____ offensive>, <____ bashing>. The warning should not be offensive. Overly broad or vague warnings violate the spirit of the rule.
   
   We DO NOT not use the American movie codes for warnings. They are nearly meaningless.
   We have several hundred international members who wouldn't understand the code even if it were meaningful.
   
   Examples of effective use of subject line
      Subject: Almanac humor: Living long enough
      Subject: What happened when Hosokawa told his friends he was resigning
      Subject: self serving excuses
      Subject: Riddles for kids of all ages
      Subject: Collection of 25 Little Moron jokes
      Subject: Math humor: To catch a lion problem
   
   Effective use of subject line
      Subject: Trading with the Japanese (political? satire)
      Subject: Very short joke or two.
      Subject: Lesbian Dinosaurs & Another Bobbit Joke.
      Subject: aids update report [insensitive to the terminally ill]
      Subject: Fegg!: Intro
   
   Subject lines with listowner critiques:
      Subject: More animal humor :)
          (Please don't use motion picture ratings; use descriptive terms)
      Subject: Joke (clean)
          (No subject given, "clean" is an unnecessary warning)
      Subject: Merit Badges for Man Scouts (clean)
          (The positive warning was useful because the topic falsely suggests risque or crude humor)
      Subject: HUMOR, Political
          (Probably okay, but at least tell of whether it is Clinton, Dole, or Gingrich, or European politics)
      Subject:  May be offensive to Chinese....
          (Warnings okay, but what is the subject?)
      Subject: From the Daily Collegian
          (No subject provided; source should be placed in the text)
      Subject: Mild sexual connotation
          (Warning okay, but what is the subject?)
      Subject: Un-Authorized reprint of a news article (duh!) - clean
         (No subject given; "clean" unnecessary; telling us it is un-authorized tells us nothing about the subject;
         give the source in the article and if you believe it is a copyright violation, please don't post it)
   
   
4. It is expected that most articles will be shorter than 25 lines. Posting an article longer than 99 lines is unacceptable. HUMOR is a mail-list, not a library! If you have a larger file which can be broken into parts, you might post these parts over the course of several days.
5. Requests, responses, comments, discussion, criticisms, and questions are not considered appropriate postings. All chatter, including witty remarks about what someone else says, should be sent only by private e-mail.
6. There is a strict limit of one article per person per day.
7. No personal attacks against members of the list.
8. Do not waste bandwidth. Don't skip more than three lines between text. Whenever possible, please omit your signature file. The LISTSERV includes your address in the REPLY-TO line, so a signature file is usually unnecessary. It is understandable that many contributors wish to identify their position, organization and state.
9. The listowner is required to disqualify any contributor who recklessly or willfully violates a HUMOR rule.