I agree with some of the points the author makes (although I've never contributed to quora myself) but I think he's misguided there. In my opinion the problem

I agree with some of the points the author makes (although I've never contributed to quora myself) but I think he's misguided there. In my opinion the problem with humour is not that it can be misunderstood by international readers, it's that it's very hard to find the sweet spot where the comment threads turn into a competition to find the wittiest/stupidest joke/pun on the article being discussed. I think the issue is that most jokes don't really contribute to the discussion and unlike slashdot you can't motivate your vote (+5 funny vs. +5 insightful). There's also the problem that humour is hard to judge objectively and is likely to annoy as many users as it amuses. That being said, if you make a very skillful, spiritual and/or topical joke on HN you might be upvoted, I've seen it happen in the past (with things like poems, lyrics and other "not-so-serious" content). Also, of all the points the author makes, this one is the only one IMO that's really applicable to HN so I don't think it's possible to draw a parallel between Quora and HN (if that's what you were trying to do).