Wayback Humor

I sometimes describe myself as "subscribed to way too many Yahoo! groups". Anyhow, while cleaning out some old files last night, I found this oldie that was originally written in 1997 or earlier (at least, that's when I printed it out). For you young'uns, that was before the days of Yahoo! Groups (in fact, it was before Yahoo), Internet bulletin boards (the ones we had then were stand-alone and not connected to the Internet), or easy-to-use discussion group software. What we had back then were newsgroups - which were named hierarchically (rec.arts.tv.soaps, for example), and accessed by typing a command such as "trn" at something called a "Unix prompt". Ok, I know I'm really dating myself here. Anyway, don't know who wrote it but here it is:

Q: How many internet mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: 1,331:

1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed.
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.
27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.
53 to flame the spell checkers.
156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list.
41 to correct spellling in the spelling/grammar flames.
109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb.
203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped.
111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts **are** relevant to this mail list.
306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty.
27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.
14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs.
3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list.
33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add "Me Too."
12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversey.
19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three."
4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.
1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup
47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for, leave it here.
143 votes for alt.change.lite.bulb.