I'm seeing a ton of (rightfully) down voted comments here with no clear reason from the down voters. Anyone who gets a down vote for their joke might just think

I'm seeing a ton of (rightfully) down voted comments here with no clear reason from the down voters. Anyone who gets a down vote for their joke might just think it's because the joke is bad, instead if the more accurate reason that HN comments are more serious. One of the nicer things I've seen on Reddit was when a mod leaves a reason for removing a comment. It serves to inform the commenter and also remind the community of the rules. In a thread such as this one with potential for interesting discussion, it'd be a shame if the mods ended up killing it because the comments got out of hand. A top stickied comment reminding people of the rules and replying to people who had their comments down voted into oblivion with a reminder might go a long way to having a civil discussion about something like this.