05.14.06
The Death of PWASOH
The People With A Sense Of Humor (PWASOH) mailing list was started in 1991 when I sent a joke to a set of co-workers and got cheers from some and jeers from others who did not want their message boxes (this was before email) filled up with crap. I let people know that they could be added to the ‘People with a sense of humor’ list if they wanted to get more jokes and that anyone could be added or dropped at any time. Over time the list grew to friends, their friends, their friends’ relatives, people who they happened to chat with at a coffee shop.
Sometime around 1997 a picture I posted of an airport hangar filled with fire-retardant foam got passed around aviation web sites and my web server (running out of a closet in my home) was brought down to it’s knees as traffic increased 200 fold overnight. The following hundreds of requests to be added to the list forced a move from personal email management to a Yahoo Group where people could sign up and drop off as they wished.
I knew the list had ‘made it’ when, during a vacation in Hawaii, a perfect stranger stopped me on a street corner to ask if I was ‘that joke guy’. Honest engine, it really happened. The encounter left me a bit dumfounded but was neither the first nor the last. Then in 2001 disaster struck.
Someone reported the mailing list to Yahoo as being in violation of their policies and without so much as a ‘hey, you did something wrong’ Yahoo killed the PWASOH list, and banned me from Yahoo. Various attempts to find out what the offense was met with nothing more than ‘Thank you for contacting Yahoo, someone will get back to you’ and nothing more. To this day I have no idea what the offense was, some cartoon I posted that was copyrighted? The use of a swear word in a joke? Some Republican offended at a political joke?
The experience of loosing the archive going back years and the list of recipients (I had some backups, but they were never very good) and of being treated so poorly so demoralized me that I gave the list up for dead. Occasional queries from friends or list members caused me to give the list one more go. I set up a new server, installed a list manager, tested various combinations of blog software and did a lot of testing, but I was never quite satisfied with the setup so I settled for parking the visual jokes (mostly photoshoped images or scans of funny ads) on an online gallery with an FAQ promising the list would one day be back. Last year I got some steam to start PWASOH up again and set up a new blog that could be posted to via email (for easy posting of jokes) as well as a new discussion group manager. Things were looking well for a PWASOH returns party when I got a notice my domain was about to expire. No problem, I said, I will just move this to my new host and re-launch the site! I made three attempts to move the domain registration, not wanting to pay the 4x price being asked for renewal by the old registrar but no matter how many forms I filled or automated domain moving tools I used the domain just would not go. I figured, all-right I will let the registration expire then re-purchase it using my new registrar. Wrong.
The day the domain expired I tried to re-purchase it to find Network Solutions was ‘holding on to it for 30 days in case I changed my mind’. Gee thanks, that is NOT what I needed, but ok, I guess I will try again a bit later, only to find cyber squatters had bought the domain straight out from under me. All I can say is GAAAHHHH!!! Network Solutions sucks just about as badly as Yahoo does!
I guess I can’t blame the squatters. There were a lot of links out to PWASOH, mainly from sites promoting funny pictures and all that traffic for the low price of a registration must have been good for the bastards that stole PWASOH dot com from under me… hmm looks like I can blame them. Oh well, defeated once again I think it is time to put the old list finally to rest. It had a good run, no make that a great run and brought many smiles to many people, but there are times when I guess you can’t ignore the universe saying ‘move on now, nothing else to see here’.
Farewell PWASOH, I miss you. I miss the daily jokes. I miss the odd encounters. But most of all I miss those emails I got every so often saying ‘thank you, this joke had me smiling all day’.
gl. said,
May 14, 2006 at 2:01 pm
“I guess I can’t blame the squatters.”
auuugghh! yes, you can! the squatters holding useful domains hostage are almost always monetizers, splogs & scraper sites looking for ad revenue hits, and they are doing the rest of the internet a great disservice. yes, i know it’s not illegal, but it’s sure unethical.
ExtraMSG said,
May 14, 2006 at 11:40 pm
That bites. Note that film roar still has a link to pwasoh which now goes to some “clean comedy” website.
Teresa said,
May 15, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Bummer. I am sorry to hear it.
I was happy to see Yahoo served with a class-action lawsuit pertaining to bilking their advertisers.
a sellers said,
May 27, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Many Republicans have a good sense of humor, unfortunately, the Grand Old Party was co-opted some years ago by a crowd of tobacco-chewing, pickup driving, illiterate types (former Dixiecrats) who are awfully loud, rude, and humorless. Normally, moderate, well-educated Republicans are witty, well-read, well-mannered, pleasant, polite, outgoing,etc. It’s bred into us at an early age. I believe Ted Knight’s character in Caddy Shack states this well -
It’s easy to grin
When your ship comes in
And you’ve the stock market beat(en)
But a man worthwhile is a man who can smile
When his shorts are too tight in the seat.
Former Yahoodiot said,
February 9, 2007 at 11:42 am
Just wiped out by some dweeb at Yahoo. Had, as linuxiac@yahoo.com over 15561 points on Yahoo Answers, was a level 6 with 13% BEST ANSWERS, and now, all, including my groups, is gone! I will miss the work that I did so well!
If it were ‘customer Care’, why don’t they care enough to respond at my new Yahoo address, linuxiac2@yahoo.com? Is this an issue ready for /.?
Hey, I am a disabled veteran, and in order to have the life I was told to get, I included Yahoo. Well, bad decisions are the basis of wisdom!
Be wise, don’t Yahoo, as it truly is full of Idiots, now that I’ve left!
Steve said,
September 20, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Two things:
1) “Honest engine” isn’t a phrase. It’s “honest injun” as in American Indian. Think Mark Twain dialect. The phrase meaning the rare honest indian, not an indian trader- who would later steal back what was traded with you. Not exactly PC- but thought you might want to know.
2) I found your site by searching for Dahlia lyrics. I see you are very familiar with Vase(s). Have you listened to Emotion Cycles? As a listener of the band, and liking Vase(s), I would have to assume you would like Emotion Cycles. I consider it orders of magnitude better than Vase(s).
Just wanted to share.