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Our Oracle
That art in Cyberspace
Emailed be thy name.
Thy news be read
On IRC as it is in gophers.
Give us our daily FTP downloads
And forgive us our archie and Veronica accesses.
For thine is the HTML,
The TCP and the IP
For ever and ever,
Web without end.
Amen.

The Internet Oracle, also known as The Usenet Oracle, is quite possibly the Internet's earliest New Media work.

It was created by Steve Kinzler in October 1989, although the software predates his creation. Yes, The Internet Oracle is Older Than the Web (although, obviously, the website isn't).

How it operates is simple: one sends an email to a particular address, asking it to "askme" a question or "tellme" the answer to a question. Every "tellme" gets sent to an "askme", and the recipient of the question answers it and sends the answer back. The best questions and answers are added to the digests.

What sort of questions are asked, and what sort of answers are given? Let's put it this way: before the Web, the Usenet Oracle had its public home in the UseNet newsgroup rec.humor.oracle. This is not a place to ask about minutiae of Oracle RDBMS queries. Nor is it a place to ask about the quantity of lumber that a groundhog could toss if groundhogs could toss lumber. They've heard that one before, with various wordings. Repeatedly. This is a place for original humor - and, with 30 years of questions and answers, that's asking a lot.

Of course, with three decades of humor under its belt, the Oracle has a few running gags: High Priest Zadoc, ZOTting querents for poor quality questions or grovels, the Oracle's beautiful (and kinky) girlfriend Lisa the Net.Sex.Goddess, a random assortment of deities, and the caveman Og -- among others.

raid wikipedia:Internet Oracle#Style to start things off

Tropes used by The Internet Oracle include:

Audience Participation: The audience is the Oracle.
Incredibly Lame Pun: Many queries are simply setups for jokes, asked in the hopes that the recipient of the query will recognize the set up and deliver the necessary punchline. See the quotes page for some examples.
Never Heard That One Before:
- The woodchuck question.
- Employment ads for Oracle programmers.
Shock and Awe: The Oracle is prone to ZOTting querents who ask about w*******ks, are insufficiently respectful, pose stupid questions, or... Hm. You know, let's just leave it at "The Oracle is prone to ZOTting querents".
Ur Example: of New Media.
You Owe Me: Every answer comes with a required payment to be made to the Oracle, always in keeping with the subject of the question and always humorous in nature:

} You owe the Oracle a copy of "A Child's Garden of Awfully Nasty Things."
} You owe the Oracle a truth table, and a falsehood couch.
} You owe the Oracle a glossy interior latex paint that leaves his walls minty-fresh and kissable.
} You owe the Oracle a mixed salad, hold the veggies.
} You owe the Oracle some topological pornography.

See the Quotes page for quite a few more.

You owe the Oracle a truly original trope.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{website|wppage=Internet Oracle}}
 {{Under Construction}}
+{{quote|''Our Oracle
+''That art in Cyberspace
+''Emailed be thy name.
+''Thy news be read
+''On IRC as it is in gophers.
+''Give us our daily FTP downloads
+''And forgive us our archie and Veronica accesses.
+''For thine is the HTML,
+''The TCP and the IP
+''For ever and ever,
+''Web without end.
+''Amen.}}
 '''''[http://internetoracle.org/ The Internet Oracle]''''', also known as '''''The Usenet Oracle''''', is quite possibly [[Ur Example|the Internet's earliest]] [[New Media]] work.
@@ Line 7: / Line 20: @@
 How it operates is simple: one sends an email to a particular address, asking it to "askme" a question or "tellme" the answer to a question. Every "tellme" gets sent to an "askme", and the recipient of the question answers it and sends the answer back. The best questions and answers are added to the digests.
-What sort of questions are asked, and what sort of answers are given? Let's put it this way: before the Web, the Usenet Oracle had its public home in the Usenet newsgroup rec.humor.oracle. This is not a place to ask about minutiae of Oracle RDBMS queries. Nor is it a place to ask about the quantity of lumber that a groundhog could toss if groundhogs could toss lumber. [[Never Heard That One Before|They've heard that one before, with various wordings. Repeatedly.]] This is a place for ''original'' humor - and, with 30 years of questions and answers, that's asking a lot.
+What sort of questions are asked, and what sort of answers are given? Let's put it this way: before the Web, the Usenet Oracle had its public home in the [[UseNet]] newsgroup rec.humor.oracle. This is not a place to ask about minutiae of Oracle RDBMS queries. Nor is it a place to ask about the quantity of lumber that a groundhog could toss if groundhogs could toss lumber. [[Never Heard That One Before|They've heard that one before, with various wordings. Repeatedly.]] This is a place for ''original'' humor - and, with 30 years of questions and answers, that's asking a lot.
+Of course, with three decades of humor under its belt, the Oracle has a few running gags:  High Priest Zadoc, [[Shock and Awe|ZOT]]ting querents for poor quality questions or grovels, the Oracle's beautiful (and kinky) girlfriend Lisa the Net.Sex.Goddess, a random assortment of deities, and the caveman Og -- among others.
-Of course, with three decades of humor under its belt, the Oracle has a few running gags. ...
  ''raid [[wikipedia:Internet Oracle#Style]] to start things off''
@@ Line 16: / Line 32: @@
 {{tropelist|Tropes used by The Internet Oracle include:}}
+* [[Audience Participation]]:  The audience ''is'' the Oracle.
+* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]:  Many queries are simply setups for jokes, asked in the hopes that the recipient of the query will recognize the set up and deliver the necessary punchline.  See the [[The Internet Oracle/Quotes|quotes page]] for some examples.
 * [[Never Heard That One Before]]:
 ** The woodchuck question.
 ** Employment ads for Oracle programmers.
+* [[Shock and Awe]]:  The Oracle is prone to ZOTting querents who ask about w*******ks, are insufficiently respectful, pose stupid questions, or... Hm.  You know, let's just leave it at "The Oracle is prone to ZOTting querents".
 * [[Ur Example]]: of [[New Media]].
+* [[You Owe Me]]:  Every answer comes with a required payment to be made to the Oracle, always in keeping with the subject of the question and always humorous in nature:
+{{quote|''} You owe the Oracle a copy of "A Child's Garden of Awfully Nasty Things."
+''} You owe the Oracle a truth table, and a falsehood couch.
+''} You owe the Oracle a glossy interior latex paint that leaves his walls minty-fresh and kissable.
+''} You owe the Oracle a mixed salad, hold the veggies.
+''} You owe the Oracle some topological pornography.}}
+:See the Quotes page for quite a few more.
 {{Needs More Tropes}}