Re: [9front] proposal: raze fortunes

[qwx@sciops.net]

On Thu Jul 25 04:49:16 +0200 2024, khm@sciops.net wrote:
> Our fortunes file is too big, most of it is boring, some of it (the
> parts that predate 9front) include bad things like joking about sex &
> abuse (there's a line that basically repurposes an old joke to accuse
> Jim McKie of sheepfucking, for instance), other parts of it (both pre-
> and post-9front) contain hitler jokes that once were edgy and now are
> stark reminders of an existential threat to modern society, and a lot of
> quotes from an ircnet which is ostensibly no-logging and can't bring
> receipts for people being quoted as being ok with being quoted.
> 
> In addition, a LOT of stuff isn't even formatted correctly (lines are
> hard-wrapped at a specific line length) with the result that the
> fortunes file as it sits *doesn't even work with fortune(1)*.
> 
> I started by deleting all the detritus from the Before 9front Days and
> then went through and deleted anything that didn't meet my arbitrarily
> high bar for comedy and/or poignancy.  
> 
> The remaining few things that DID meet my bar, but were quotes from
> ircnets, I removed anyway, because no logging!
> 
> Anyway, here's my proposed replacement for /sys/games/lib/fortunes
> 
> xoxo
> khm

Thank you for doing this, though this reduces the line count from 5265
to 16.  I'd suggest doing the same with /lib/troll and merging it and
perhaps quotes from the 'who' page, unless that is also deemed
questionable.  We could also add a /lib/ngate or others and possibly
have fortunes(1) use multiple files.  Just some suggestions, not sure
what would be best or even desirable.

Cheers,
qwx