5 ms·

I think the culture of rejecting joke-only comments is significant. I love a good joke, but so does everybody else. Rewarding jokes would have a major effect o

by blt 10y ago

I think the culture of rejecting joke-only comments is significant. I love a good joke, but so does everybody else. Rewarding jokes would have a major effect on the signal/noise ratio.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
Maybe have a [jokular] tag and let readers flag a comment as such, then allow [jokular] comments to be hidden for the people who find them noisy. Edit: this comment deservers the [overengineering] tag...
- mortehu 10y ago
  Slashdot has something similar. Moderators' points have to be tagged with "Funny", "Interesting", etc, and users can choose how to weigh each type of point.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  That's a decent idea. The HN client could also have settings to turn them off entirely or just disable them for a specific thread with too much noise.
AlexB138 10y ago
Agreed. The quality-death of many forums I've been a part of came from the onset of users posting joke responses becoming the norm. One joke amid 100 comments can be funny. One quality comment amid 100 attempted jokes is banal and mind numbing.
angry_octet 10y ago
Regrettably it makes the comments read like the minutes from an accountancy standards institute. There is also a 'wikipedia editor' or 'stack overflow mod' effect, where because someone said jokes are bad a whole bunch of people jump on them to kill them dead. Dead! I'm reminded of a Robin Williams gag: German talk show host: Why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany? Robin Williams: Did you ever think that you killed all the funny people?
pjc50 10y ago
From my own experience, you can get jokes through the filter if you go against the rules of comedy and explain the joke / provide a serious version of the point in the same post.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  Same if it's obscure enough that it's not obviously a joke on the surface.

5 ms·

I think the culture of rejecting joke-only comments is significant. I love a good joke, but so does everybody else. Rewarding jokes would have a major effect o

by blt 10y ago

I think the culture of rejecting joke-only comments is significant. I love a good joke, but so does everybody else. Rewarding jokes would have a major effect on the signal/noise ratio.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
Maybe have a [jokular] tag and let readers flag a comment as such, then allow [jokular] comments to be hidden for the people who find them noisy. Edit: this comment deservers the [overengineering] tag...
- mortehu 10y ago
  Slashdot has something similar. Moderators' points have to be tagged with "Funny", "Interesting", etc, and users can choose how to weigh each type of point.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  That's a decent idea. The HN client could also have settings to turn them off entirely or just disable them for a specific thread with too much noise.
AlexB138 10y ago
Agreed. The quality-death of many forums I've been a part of came from the onset of users posting joke responses becoming the norm. One joke amid 100 comments can be funny. One quality comment amid 100 attempted jokes is banal and mind numbing.
angry_octet 10y ago
Regrettably it makes the comments read like the minutes from an accountancy standards institute. There is also a 'wikipedia editor' or 'stack overflow mod' effect, where because someone said jokes are bad a whole bunch of people jump on them to kill them dead. Dead! I'm reminded of a Robin Williams gag: German talk show host: Why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany? Robin Williams: Did you ever think that you killed all the funny people?
pjc50 10y ago
From my own experience, you can get jokes through the filter if you go against the rules of comedy and explain the joke / provide a serious version of the point in the same post.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  Same if it's obscure enough that it's not obviously a joke on the surface.