101 Ways to be Obnoxious on Usenet
by Alan Meiss, ameiss@indiana.edu
Note to the profoundly impaired: this list is intended as humor, and
consists mostly of things that you should NOT do. NOT NOT NOT do. Once
more, slowly, d-o-n-'-t d-o t-h-e-s-e t-h-i-n-g-s. If you do, you're a
bad, naughty person. Bad person! Naughty! Naughty, *bad* person! Ok,
now that *that's* out of the way, without further ado...
1. Post a message asking how to post messages.
2. Lead a tireless crusade for the creation of newsgroups with silly
names like alt.my.butt.is.hairy.
3. Put 4 addresses, 5 lines of "Geek Code", 6 ASCII-art bicycles, a
PGP key, and your home phone in your signature.
4. Reinvigorate a discussion by switching attributions in followups.
5. Post recipes on rec.pets.cats.
6. Post a compendium of old articles from a thread that died months
ago with a title such as "*** HAS JOE SMITH FORGOTTEN HIS LIES?
***"
7. Post a 56-part binary MPG file of your dog throwing up to
news.answers. Announce that you screwed it up and repeat.
8. On the MST3K groups, ask what happened to Joel.
9. Ask readers of rec.music.misc to post their favorite Zeppelin tune
"for a poll".
10. Reacquaint the readers of rec.humor with the
"two-strings-go-in-a-bar" joke.
11. Determine a perversion so bizarre or obscure that it doesn't yet
have its own sex group.
12. Post your new "War Heroes of India" FAQ to soc.culture.pakistan.
13. Start this week's new AOL virus rumor.
14. Format your posts for 90 columns (or 20).
15. Provide a valuable public service by notifying the eager readers
of roughly 1,200 newsgroups of your new "HOOTERAMA" phone sex
service or "PorqWhiffe" pheramone cologne.
16. Post elaborate conspiracy theories to talk.politics.misc detailing
how ATF agents under the control of Chelsea Clinton and Socks have
implanted invisible microchips in your genitals.
17. Fill that empty mailbox, make new friends, delight your
postmaster, and selflessly lead others to riches with a few "MAKE
MONEY FAST" posts.
18. Attempt to sell your sweaty underwear in alt.clothing.lingerie.
19. Follow up a 200-line post to add only your signature.
20. Crosspost Amiga articles to the Mac and PC newsgroups for a
valuable interchange of provocative ideas.
21. Announce a mailing list for Bill Gates' VISA card number.
22. Inform the readers of alt.sex that your friend at a particular
address is taking a penis length survey, and the first 1000 people
to send him their measurements will receive free naked pictures of
Cindy Crawford.
23. Correct every spelling mistake you encounter, but misspell the
word "imbecile" in your followup flames.
24. Flame yourself, and complain to your own postmaster.
25. Ask readers of the Star Trek groups when they last had dates.
26. Post personal ads on groups such as alt.sex.diapers listing your
work phone number.
27. Post under the name Dave Rhodes.
28. Followup every post in a newsgroup ranking them on a scale from 1
to 10.
29. Establish your own little Usenet niche by writing a Wink
Martindale FAQ.
30. Advise other readers to ftp to 127.0.0.1 for "really cool nudie
pics".
31. Post daily word searches to rec.puzzles.
32. Post your trig homework to sci.math and ask the readers to e-mail
you the answers, since you "don't read the group".
33. Provoke insightful and productive debates on fresh new topics such
as abortion, gun control, the existence of God, penile
circumcision, and the relative superiority of Mac or PC operating
systems.
34. Pick a cutesy handle that inspires vicarious embarrassment in
other readers, such as "SoHot4U", "SokSnifer", or "WetNWild".
35. Maintain a high-level of constructive decorum by addressing
someone with whom you disagree as "monkey boy".
36. Inform the readers of the sex groups that they're "going straight
to hell", and then proceed to followup a variety of titillating
posts.
37. Post to alt.folklore.urban that this guy that a friend of your
uncle's ex-girlfriend's boss knew received the donated heart of
River Phoenix.
38. Relentlessly inform the readers of groups such as rec.pets.iguanas
or sci.agriculture of your UFO, JFK, OJ, NRA, NSA, Nutrasweet, and
Azeri genocide theories. Relate them all to sunspot activity and
ancient astronauts.
39. Post instructions telling other readers how to put you in their
killfile.
40. Post whining, misspelled, and vaguely creepy personal ads in
wildly inappropriate newsgroups, and followup to berate the
readers for not responding.
41. Announce that a particular site has opened up a new combination OJ
Jury Info/Homemade Bombs/Kiddie Porn/Scientology
Documents/Computer Subliminal Hypnosis ftp archive.
42. Construct a device that lets your pets post to Usenet by pawing or
pecking a feeder bar.
43. Post the Niemann Marcus cookie recipe to rec.food.recipes.
44. Eliminate nearly all meaningful traffic on a newsgroup for weeks
by challenging its readership to come up with as many synonyms as
possible for the word vomit.
45. Accuse other posters of being AI experiments, Perl scripts, or
Emacs macros.
46. Claim that you can see "hidden images" in another person's posting
when you cross your eyes.
47. Ask Austrian readers about kangaroos.
48. Ask Australian readers about alpine skiing.
49. Include Rush lyrics or Rush quotes in all your posts.
50. Accuse female posters of being male.
51. Make an anonymous posting accusing others of cowardice.
52. Accuse a fellow AOL or Prodigy subscriber of being a "newbie"
because their 3 months on the net are dwarfed by your own span of
4.
53. Insist that anyone objecting to your compulsive fascination with
consuming the flesh of strangled disabled minors is "judgemental".
54. If you've grown tired of typing, effectively end a thread by
accusing others of being Nazis.
55. Ask readers of soc.culture.nordic whether the Swedish Chef has a
Sampo.
56. Write and regularly post a FAQ about yourself.
57. Post graphic descriptions of your bowel movements, genital sores,
and various suppurating wounds to alt.tasteless.
58. Ask readers of sci.med for urgent, step-by-step instructions on
removing arrows, or inquire why all your extremities have turned
dark purple.
59. Insist that there's no such state in the U.S. as "New Mexico".
60. Post only in Esperanto.
61. Claim a copyright on the word "Usenet", and followup with a bill
all posts you encounter that contain it.
62. Sell "posting permits" in news.announce.newusers.
63. Post single-part text messages in MIME format.
64. Ask the readers of rec.sewing whether any of them want to be the
drummer for your new band, "Death Monkeys".
65. Claim to be an amorous highschool cheerleader while posting under
a name such as "Robert Bradley Smith, Jr."
66. In the spirit of purest optimism, ask other readers to followup
with their account passwords and credit card numbers.
67. Why use a single question mark or exclamation point when you can
use at least thirty?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
68. List a cute organization name in your header, such as "Canadians
69. Insult a poster from another nation based on his country's
performance in World War II.
70. Post vitriolic, frothing, hair-trigger flames in polite
newsgroups, as if you were a testosterone-crazed adolescent
debating which shotgun is superior in alt.games.doom.
71. Followup spam posts in the belief that the originator, who
probably follows the group closely and is desperately curious
about receiving feedback, will see your impassioned plea and be so
moved by your lengthy, point-by-point indictment of their conduct
that they pledge to desist from such activity for all time.
72. Regardless of its accuracy, followup another post with the line
"BZZZT! Wrong answer!" or "Hello! McFly!"
73. Use a 120-line ASCII graphic of Spock as your signature.
74. Post to soc.culture.women asking "what's your favorite brand of
oven mitt, little ladies?"
75. Post to news.annnounce.newusers asking if there are any nurses in
Portland willing to spank you. Followup with an apology. Followup
again with the original article.
76. Post with a newsreader that replaces punctuation marks with
strange, non-ASCII characters.
77. Steer all debates to your own pet subjects of expertise,
regardless of their relevance.
78. Make it clear from your postings that you've a profound inability
to distinguish "The X Files" as fiction.
79. Insist that another poster is really Serdar Argic or Kibo.
80. Post 20-part encoded image files from NASA ftp archives that you
claim show clear evidence of alien settlements.
81. Insinuate vague conspiracies in all your posts.
82. Spam post alarming ten-year-old files about Congressional bills to
tax modem usage "in the name of freedom".
83. Claim that unidentified government agencies are censoring your
posts.
84. Ask readers to collect aluminum pop-tops on behalf of Craig
Shergold.
85. Ask readers of comp.sci.algorithms how to get Super Mario to the
castle.
86. POST IN ALL CAPS
87. omit all punctuation
88. omitallspaces
89. DOALLTHREEOFTHEABOVE
90. Ask the readers of alt.current-events.net-abuse where to purchase
Cantor and Siegel's book.
91. Post the phone number of the Michigan Militia to alt.conspiracy as
the "Classified ATF Secret Hotline".
92. Compose an exhaustively researched 15-part FAQ detailing the
favorite movie musicals of relatives of the Deep Space Nine cast.
Post it weekly in its entirety.
93. Strive to ensure that no two consecutive words in your posts are
correctly spelled.
94. Enrich the lives of thousands with a thoughtful and impassioned
debate on the topic "AOL users suck".
95. Dispense essential and priceless financial advice, such as the
assertion that no one is legally required to pay taxes.
96. Demand that others cease using the letter e, as you find it "dply
offnsiv".
97. Post to rec.music.misc insisting that "Curt Kobain should leave
Pearl Jam since they'll never tour again."
98. Assume that the entire Usenet hierarchy shares your interest in
helping lonely Ukrainian lasses find love.
99. Followup another person's posts every twelve minutes to accuse
them of "obsessing".
100. Followup two dozen of another person's posts to accuse them of
harassing you. Send copious e-mail if you're ignored.
101. Start pointless debates over topics such as whether Whoopi
Goldberg has eyebrows, what happens when you cross the
International Dateline, and whether the bad guy in Popeye cartoons
was named "Bluto" or "Brutus".
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