3 ms·

Sounds stupid but my favorite thing is the lack of jokes. Not having to scroll or collapse tree after tree of the same basic jokey pun comments is such a great

by vasco 3y ago

Sounds stupid but my favorite thing is the lack of jokes. Not having to scroll or collapse tree after tree of the same basic jokey pun comments is such a great feeling. Here on HN instead of collapsing jokes you need to collapse tree after tree of cynical rebuttals, which is still better.

n6242 3y ago
While I personally really enjoy jokes I agree that they can add a lot of noise in online communities. I'd love to find a bunch of other "serious only" communities for other topics I enjoy, I'd then read the no-jokes ones during breakfast and the joke-filled ones in the evening. But it seems quite unlikely, unless I build an extension that filters content based on sentiment analysis or something similar.
Kye 3y ago
I try to keep my jokes here a few levels above memes.[0] I save most of the puns for social media where they're appreciated. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38244086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38244086
krapp 3y ago
On the one hand I get it, but on the other hand, humor has a long and distinguished tradition within hacker and nerd culture, and a preference for the constant drivel of midwit cynicism and rancor over even a single joke out of a fear of being contaminated by "Redditness" is one of the more toxic aspects of this community.
- vasco 3y ago
  Everyone likes to laugh. The problem is that joking in real life during a whiteboarding session here and there in a lull or a in a difficult moment is a cut from the norm and everyone loves it. But in an online message board you have the problem that jokes are understood by everyone, whereas a deep insightful comment isn't understood by everyone, so jokes tend to go to the top, and people tend to cluster jokes on jokes in joke trees and suddenly what started as "a joke here and there lightens the mood up" turns into people trying to one-up each other on jokes instead of reading the damn article and sharing some actual insight. It's hard to control "how much" online. HN actually has lots of jokes in absolute numbers, usually only the best ones are tolerated, it's just that on a relative basis you won't enter a thread with 20 comments where 18 are jokes, which is what I would hate.
- Jensson 3y ago
  Jokes hurts peoples ability to change their mind in my experience. People who make jokes about Trump or Obama and therefore start to make friends and connections based on those thoughts will basically be impossible to reason with. So the lack of jokes on HN is what makes debates here possible, if we had more jokes we would no longer have debates.
  - kukkeliskuu 3y ago
    First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I think there is a correlation between joking and being difficult to reason with, but the causality between them might not be the one you assume. It appears to me that one of the reasons why people laugh is to release some internal tension. The tension comes from the cognitive dissonance with conflicting thoughts that they have. The alternative would be to not release the tension but to seeing that you hold these contradictory thoughts and enduring the pain that you must be wrong, because you hold contradictory thoughts, in other words, admitting there is something for you to learn. But that would require you to become more conscious about your conflicts. The joking is the less conscious, automatic option. And when you are not being conscious, but you automatically take the route of joking, you do not have the ability to choose between being more conscious or less conscious.
    - Clamchop 3y ago
      This is a really odd take on the function of humor. Characterizing all jokes in this way is a mistake. Creating original jokes is very deliberate and requires lateral thinking, familiarity with the topic, and awareness of your audience. It's very conscious! Deploying unoriginal or clichéd jokes to a positive reception calls for some of the aforementioned. Comedy is widely acknowledged as a means of commenting or contemplating on topics that are controversial or uncomfortable. Some types of humor are contradictory. This is bullshitting and sarcasm. Plenty are not a fan but it could also be argued that it's useful for approaching truth or good ideas by creatively exploring the space of falsehoods and bad ideas. Conversational TDD, if you will. Bullshitting specifically can be an exercise in role-playing, which may be useful practice for situations that may actually arise. Some jokes betray no particular belief at all but still require that you be witty or clever. These are your puns, double entendres, innuendos, and so on. Thinking of humor as lazy or useless or some vaguely compulsive behavior is some kind of thing. Or, to borrow a clichéd bit of sarcasm, you sound like you're a lot of fun at parties. ;)
- gardenhedge 3y ago
  It's not toxic at all. If you want Reddit go to Reddit.

by vasco 3y ago

n6242 3y ago

While I personally really enjoy jokes I agree that they can add a lot of noise in online communities. I'd love to find a bunch of other "serious only" communities for other topics I enjoy, I'd then read the no-jokes ones during breakfast and the joke-filled ones in the evening. But it seems quite unlikely, unless I build an extension that filters content based on sentiment analysis or something similar.

Kye 3y ago

I try to keep my jokes here a few levels above memes.[0] I save most of the puns for social media where they're appreciated. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38244086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38244086

krapp 3y ago

On the one hand I get it, but on the other hand, humor has a long and distinguished tradition within hacker and nerd culture, and a preference for the constant drivel of midwit cynicism and rancor over even a single joke out of a fear of being contaminated by "Redditness" is one of the more toxic aspects of this community.

vasco 3y ago
Everyone likes to laugh. The problem is that joking in real life during a whiteboarding session here and there in a lull or a in a difficult moment is a cut from the norm and everyone loves it. But in an online message board you have the problem that jokes are understood by everyone, whereas a deep insightful comment isn't understood by everyone, so jokes tend to go to the top, and people tend to cluster jokes on jokes in joke trees and suddenly what started as "a joke here and there lightens the mood up" turns into people trying to one-up each other on jokes instead of reading the damn article and sharing some actual insight. It's hard to control "how much" online. HN actually has lots of jokes in absolute numbers, usually only the best ones are tolerated, it's just that on a relative basis you won't enter a thread with 20 comments where 18 are jokes, which is what I would hate.
Jensson 3y ago
Jokes hurts peoples ability to change their mind in my experience. People who make jokes about Trump or Obama and therefore start to make friends and connections based on those thoughts will basically be impossible to reason with. So the lack of jokes on HN is what makes debates here possible, if we had more jokes we would no longer have debates.
- kukkeliskuu 3y ago
  First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I think there is a correlation between joking and being difficult to reason with, but the causality between them might not be the one you assume. It appears to me that one of the reasons why people laugh is to release some internal tension. The tension comes from the cognitive dissonance with conflicting thoughts that they have. The alternative would be to not release the tension but to seeing that you hold these contradictory thoughts and enduring the pain that you must be wrong, because you hold contradictory thoughts, in other words, admitting there is something for you to learn. But that would require you to become more conscious about your conflicts. The joking is the less conscious, automatic option. And when you are not being conscious, but you automatically take the route of joking, you do not have the ability to choose between being more conscious or less conscious.
  - Clamchop 3y ago
    This is a really odd take on the function of humor. Characterizing all jokes in this way is a mistake. Creating original jokes is very deliberate and requires lateral thinking, familiarity with the topic, and awareness of your audience. It's very conscious! Deploying unoriginal or clichéd jokes to a positive reception calls for some of the aforementioned. Comedy is widely acknowledged as a means of commenting or contemplating on topics that are controversial or uncomfortable. Some types of humor are contradictory. This is bullshitting and sarcasm. Plenty are not a fan but it could also be argued that it's useful for approaching truth or good ideas by creatively exploring the space of falsehoods and bad ideas. Conversational TDD, if you will. Bullshitting specifically can be an exercise in role-playing, which may be useful practice for situations that may actually arise. Some jokes betray no particular belief at all but still require that you be witty or clever. These are your puns, double entendres, innuendos, and so on. Thinking of humor as lazy or useless or some vaguely compulsive behavior is some kind of thing. Or, to borrow a clichéd bit of sarcasm, you sound like you're a lot of fun at parties. ;)
gardenhedge 3y ago
It's not toxic at all. If you want Reddit go to Reddit.