Here is some collected information about Joke of the Day (JOTD) that will help you understand and enjoy the list and this site.  JOTD was started in October, 1996 and has been growing ever since.  Thanks in advance for your support and encouragement.

What's Funny; What's Not

This is an overview of what Joke of the Day considers humor to be.  Please take time to read it, as these principles govern the material you'll read on the list and in these pages.

Twelve Myths

Here are twelve common myths about The Internet and e-mail messaging.  They're included here to help you avoid perpetuating or succumbing to them.

Joke of the Day Frequently Asked Questions

JOTD is a (mostly) daily e-mail message containing humorous anecdotes, stories, puns, and sundry tales that are either submitted by subscribers or pulled from my files. All the material is "squeaky clean" and just the kind of stories you'd tell to your grandmother or your children. As one subscriber put it, "Clean jokes are always the best--chances are that nobody has already heard them."

Someone usually recommends the list to you. If you're a subscriber then that's probably what happened. Submissions for new subscribers are always welcome--but remember that some people (for obscure reasons) are adverse to receiving humor via e-mail--so please know the people you recommend!

If you've been forwarded a JOTD message from someone you know, please feel free and subscribe yourself. This can be done for free by clicking here.

That's probably a half-hour conversation, but basically there are numerous "Joke Of The Day"-type services but none that takes the "slant" we take. Since the inception of the service I've had a few rude comments, some snide remarks, many positive comments and a few genuinely touching stories that make it all worthwhile and make the few folks that, for reasons I'll never understand, can't endure any kind of humor bearable. The positive/negative comments run about 100-1 to the positive.

That's impossible to tell. In addition to the people that are direct recipients there is more than one "redistributor" that forwards the messages to their own lists. There are several thousand in any event. I've had my own stories sent back to me months later from the most unlikely places (you can tell a JOTD-originated story because the phrasing and word-order used are uncommon). There are far fewer contributors than subscribers (as with any list). Roughly 2%-3% of the direct list contributes, which is typical.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to, but to leave the list send a message to:

Your messages are always welcome to: . Send material that you enjoy--we're always anxious to receive it. Remember that many good tales have already been used and that there is usually a message backlog. I try and use all submissions that are consistent with the format.

1. Clearly off-color stories.
2. Supposedly funny attachments, programs, or the like.
3. Chain mails, tag-you're-it emails, snowball fights or similar nonsense.
4. Warnings about the latest computer or e-mail virus that is about to destroy life as we know it.
5. Messages that claim a donation will be made to some worthy cause or someone will win a prize if so many e-mail messages are received within a set time period--or whatever the latest scam might be (and by far the majority of these ARE scams).
6. Anything that you know to be copyrighted. For example, the jokes and routines of a professional comic or a cartoon or comic strip are probably copyrighted and I can't use them.
    

Mailing List Use

I have never sold, rented, lent, or given your e-mail address to anyone for any purpose, nor will I do so. If you start getting SPAMmed after you start receiving DW's Joke of the Day, it's a coincidence.

Other Advertising

Occasional advertising messages from DW's Joke of the Day, its suppliers, or affiliates may appear in the messages. Clearly you are under to obligation to use any services promoted through the messages, but I do strongly encourage you to take advantage of any products or services that meet your needs, especially those recommended by DW's Joke of the Day.

In today's e-mail world, spam is everywhere and Internet service providers (IPSs) feel they are forced to take steps to try and reduce the amount of spam their subscribers receive.  Frequently these anti-spam measures are unreasonable and outright foolish.

Often an ISP (AOL, Earthlink, AT&T, and so on are examples of ISPs) will "block" traffic from certain addresses or lists.  This problem affects DW's Joke of the Day but is not specific to us.  It also affects the rest of your private mail and probably means that you are losing private mail as well as JOTD if your message traffic is "blocked."  Anyone trying to write to you during the same time frame will probably have received the same errors for the same reason. The JOTD list is but one of the many people who may have tried to write to you while your mail system was "blocked" (malfunctioning) so that legitimate messages could not be received.

Do not let technical people convince you this is normal or that they have "no choice" but to block messages you want to receive.  It is never normal for a mail system to claim that a valid, working account does not exist, just as it would not be normal for the post office to return some of your mail with "addressee unknown" when the address was written correctly. It is true that some mail systems are less reliable than others, and your technical people may be doing the best they can with the tools they have. But, ultimately, the level of service that you are receiving is the result of a business decision, and not something due to a universal technical limitation that one can only accept. Reliable mail systems do exist, and it is ultimately up to you to decide whether this level of service is acceptable or not.

Moreover, you have a right to expect that you will receive legitimate mail traffic that you want to receive (you are the final arbiter of what traffic is legitimate).

The point is please remember to "allow" DW's Joke of the Day messages if you're about to "block" your mail account. If your ISP is blocking your JOTD messages, you must insist that they unblock (or "white list" all messages from "synchronal.net."

DW's Joke of the Day Theme

"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes to Watson,
in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "A Case of Identity" (1892)