It was only a matter of time.

Long ago, there was a usenet newsgroup called alt.comedy.standup which provided a convenient way for standup comics to join together in an online community of sorts. The main ideas being to share information, get questions answered and coordinate business and social events. The Male Half of the Staff recalls:

I had a Toshiba laptop and a text-only internet account via Delphi and I was on there as early as 1996, maybe even late-1995. It was fascinating. The potential was there to really network and coordinate. There were the usual incidents where people tried out material (huge gaffe!), tempers flared or name-calling got out of hand, but, for the most part, it was used for good and not evil. People posted under their real names, shared information, a few bookers even hopped on to fill the occasional hole. It was useful. The potential was eventually squandered when a handful of anti-social types, arrested development show-off types and anonymous trolls dominated it and chased out any real useful discussion.

This opened the door for a series of regional newsgroups to fill the void. Groups– moderated groups– sprang up in Philadelphia, Southern California, San Francisco and elsewhere and filled the same needs that the usenet group did, but on a local, and more concentrated basis. The newer groups are administered mainly through the technology (and bandwidth) provided by Yahoo! Registration is easy and you can jigger the configuration to have the whole thing dumped into your email inbox if you don’t feel like regularly checking in.

Meanwhile, back at alt.comedy.standup, it eventually became a rat’s nest of troll posting, political commentary and incoherent cyber masturbation. Real comics abandoned it until it became a husk.

It’s nice to see that someone has finally gone to the trouble of resurrecting a national or international ng to serve the standup biz.

That someone, “Father Luke,” is seeking standup comics and others to populate a new newsgroup, this one moderated. He writes:

Hi you guys, Father Luke here. the usenet group, alt.comedy.standup went bye bye a long time ago. Welcome to moderated.alt.comedy.standup. Tell everyone you know, invite everyone who matters. Only industry may post…

There’s an FAQ posted there, there are also some bugs to be ironed out, but a moderated newsgroup of this kind has the potential to be very useful. If you’re unclear on the concept of a newsgroup, click on the article on our resource page about alt.comedy.standup, written by Suzy Soro and, if you’re really unclear after that, click on the button on that file that explains how to use a newsgroup. If you click on the link from Father Luke’s email and follow the directions for registration, you’ll be able to register (for free!) and begin posting, after your subscription request is approved. Although it’s a good idea to “lurk” for a while before posting.