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Ask HN: Allowance for “for fun” post and comments?
Recently, there was post on HN [0] about SETI being baffled by a signal from the stars. While there were serious comments, there were also some comical discussions [1] as well, just having some fun. I think that these frivolous comments are frown upon here as these comments were either flagged or downvoted.
My suggestion is to allow one fun post that allows for humour and fun to be posted as well. What do you think?
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12388228
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12389594
- her 10y agoI think HN should probably stay the course. The current guidelines attract interesting and insightful comments and thought provoking stories. You can teach things through humor and not every academic discussion has to be dry. So why not add humor to something insightful? Because that raises the bar and I think that's what we want. If we just add humor/fun posts, we've just lowered the bar and then invite low effort posts and comments.
- yitchelle 10y agoI think you are right. Insightful humour is very difficult to produce, especially if it should be with technical focus to it. I guess that's why Dilbert or xkcd works well with the HN crowd.
- chroma 10y agoI can find thoughtless humor anywhere. I like HN because the comments tend to be more "meat & potatoes" and less "cotton candy". The ratio has definitely gotten worse over time, and I wish moderators would detach and sink the Twitter-style one-liners.