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Why is every comment containing humor downvoted on Hackernews? (Mine has no humor, mind you!)
by handzhiev 9y ago
Why is every comment containing humor downvoted on Hackernews? (Mine has no humor, mind you!)
- grzm 9y agoI suspect it's an effort to keep the signal to noise ratio high. In reference to April Fool's gags on HN, 'dang commented a while back: > "A word about humorlessness, since it's bound to come up. People who complain about HN's humorlessness have a point, but not because we're against humor. We like laughing as much as anyone. It's because empirically, a culture of humor means a flood of lame humor, and HN's goal is to optimize for signal/noise ratio. As with any optimization, there are inevitably tradeoffs." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506793
- handzhiev 9y agoI think the parent comment has more value than just humor, but feel like it's being punished for not being serious enough.