Email from Sev Trek Competition entrant, Hendrick A. Visser
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| "I read all the other punchlines that people write in, and I have noticed that I have never been in them. Do you only take the first 30 or something??? I have read some of the punchlines and they are stupid. The winning one is usually good, but some of the others are dumb. Like the one with Ensign Chin and you put the winning punchline for the day something like that he had to go pee. Ha ha ha! That's stupid!"
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| Hendrick's email (plus a steady stream of enquiries from other readers) has prompted me to give a more detailed explanation of how the Sev Trek competition works. Hopefully, understanding how I do this whole thing will clear things up a bit.
"I read all the other punchlines that people write in, and I have noticed that I have never been in them."
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A select few. The first thing I say to everyone who complains about not getting posted is that I receive about 150 punchlines a day. Only a small percentage of these get posted. Unfortunately, that means a lot of people will miss out. I'm sorry that you'll miss out, but would you rather wade through thousands of punchlines each week?
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"Do you only take the first 30 or something???"
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How it works. I receive your punchlines as emails and read through them all, laboriously cutting and pasting the ones that make me laugh into the Entries Page (I know it's tedious - I'm hoping to write a CGI script to help me speed up the process in 1998).
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"I have read some of the punchlines and they are stupid."
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Funny is in the eye of the beholder. Humor is a very subjective thing - what you find funny, I may not (and vica versa). As I read through the punchlines, I take an instant to decide whether to post it or not. Posted punchlines need to be funny, preferably short (and not in ALL CAPS) and original.
I mention originality because many punchlines are repeats of previous entries. This isn't always due to copying - a lot are obvious jokes. For example, the comic strip about the number 47 has yielded countless punchlines about having "47 ensigns left" or "we've already killed 47 ensigns" or stuff like that.
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"Like the one with Ensign Chin and you put the winning punchline for the day something like that he had to go pee. Ha ha ha! That's stupid!"
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Ah, sarcasm! I must add about Ensign Chin peeing, I only chose that punchline because it was a line out of one of my favourite songs at the moment. A lot of you probably didn't even get it. I'm sure there are punchlines that a lot of you get (particularly in the States) that I wouldn't understand at all. As I say, humor is very subjective.
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My wish list: I would love to set up the competition so that all of you could judge which punchlines go onto the Entries Page. However, I can't really think of a feasible way of displaying 1000 punchlines a week for you to judge. The unfortunate fact is the job of deciding which punchlines get posted lies with me (and as the creator of the comic strip the punchlines are written for, I guess I am the most qualified).
However, I am contemplating having a voting system one day where you can choose the winning punchline from a selected list of punchlines. I just have to learn how to write CGI so I can automate the process.
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Apologies. I say apologies because in spite of all my justifications, I still feel bad that people feel left out. I'm not perfect and in my hustle and bustle probably overlook good punchlines (there have been times that at the end of the week, the winning punchline is one I've missed during the week). So for everyone who misses out, sorry!
I'd still like to think people enjoy the Entries Page and the humorous entries that get posted - I get a lot of enjoyment out of all the creative lines people come up with. Anyway, back to the Competition!
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