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The Internet Oracle (historically known as The Usenet Oracle) is an effort at collective humor in a pseudo-Socratic question-and-answer format.

A user sends a question ("tellme") to the Oracle via e-mail, or the Internet Oracle website, and it is sent to another user (another "incarnation" of the Oracle) who may answer it. Meanwhile, the original questioner is also sent a question to answer. All exchanges are conducted through a central distribution system which makes all users anonymous. Unanswered questions are returned to the queue after a day or two. Users may also request ("askme") unanswered questions without posing their own. A completed question-and-answer pair is called an "Oracularity".

"Geek" humor is also common, though less common than in the early years of the Oracle's existence, when fewer casual home computer users had Internet access. A complex Oracle mythos has also evolved around the figure of an omniscient, anthropomorphic, geeky deity and a host of grovelling priests and attendants. Other staples in conversation with the Oracle include: A *ZOT* (administered with the Staff of Zot, see LART) is earned when the Oracle is irritated. *ZOT*s are something like lightning strikes and are usually fatal. The Oracle will often censor the word "woodchuck" as "w..dch.ck" or simply refer to it obliquely ("rodent of unusual size"). This is a reference to "The Woodchuck Question": "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?", which in the early days of the Usenet Oracle, was over-asked to the point of being a cliché. Traditionally, questions to the Oracle open with a suitable grovel such as "High and Mighty Oracle, please answer my most humble question," although grovels are often very creative and can be very long, or even part of the question. Answers from the Oracle traditionally contain a request for payment such as "You owe the Oracle a rubber chicken and a Cadillac." This segment, often called the "YOTO line" (for "You owe the Oracle") or tribute, often refers to objects that are related, in a punny way, to the answer they are a part of. These include the worthless High Priest Zadoc (sometimes with an assistant named Kendai), the Oracle's girlfriend Lisa the Net.Sex.Goddess, an assortment of deities, and the caveman figure Og.

These are posted to the Usenet newsgroup rec.humor.oracle, the Oracle website, and also distributed via e-mailing list. Now, the forum is basically about asking silly questions to get silly answers; consequently questions meant for libelous intent, questions of a sexual nature, and serious questions are not apt to this forum (although an exception may be made when a serious question is given a particularly silly or funny answer).

There is a usenet group, news:rec.humor.oracle.d, which is populated by a variety of participants in the Internet Oracle.

Peter Langston is credited with the initial idea for an Oracle program. He then distributed the program via the PSL Games Tape to Unix installations around the world until 1988. In 1989, Lars Huttar was told about Langston's Oracle by a friend at college. Not knowing where to obtain a copy, he wrote his own version of the program, which only worked when users were logged into the same computer. Huttar posted the source code to the Usenet group alt.sources in August. Steve Kinzler, who was a graduate student and system administrator at Indiana University, downloaded Huttar's code that same year. He deployed it as the Usenet Oracle on a university server and it became popular. Ray Moody, a graduate student at Purdue University, enhanced the program to allow access via e-mail. This allowed anyone on the Internet to use the Oracle. Kinzler installed this version on another Indiana University computer, where it resided until 2014. It was renamed the Internet Oracle in March 1996. He provides a server to host the Oracle program, its web site, and archives.

Quick Facts

• A user sends a question ("tellme") to the Oracle via e-mail, or the Internet Oracle website, and it is sent to another user (another "incarnation" of the Oracle) who may answer it.
• There is a usenet group, news:rec.humor.oracle.d, which is populated by a variety of participants in the Internet Oracle.
• Traditionally, questions to the Oracle open with a suitable grovel such as "High and Mighty Oracle, please answer my most humble question," although grovels are often very creative and can be very long, or even part of the question.
• These are posted to the Usenet newsgroup rec.humor.oracle, the Oracle website, and also distributed via e-mailing list.
• This allowed anyone on the Internet to use the Oracle.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Internet Oracle". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.