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Fundamentally it is to have a good signal to noise ratio, in the name of efficiency. I'd rather read/parse quickly 50 insightful comments, that 300 where most

by seren 11y ago

Fundamentally it is to have a good signal to noise ratio, in the name of efficiency. I'd rather read/parse quickly 50 insightful comments, that 300 where most of them are jokes, puns, etc. Sure more jokes would likely give a more friendly or relaxed atmosphere, but there are already so many of these informative not-too-serious-but-fun-to-read communities, that I am grateful to have at least one place where I know the comment quality and information density is quite high.

1arity 11y ago
Has the experiment been tried ? 6:1 seems too high. If that were what downvotes were currently suppressing, I feel we'd see a lot more illegal humorists slipping through this border control. Are downvotes really that effective a filter ? For instance, if HN downvotes don't stop the haters ( under even the extreme assumption that, on the internet, there are 10 haters to every 1 netizen ), I don't think they're stopping the X times as many humorists ( or "Humorous Comment Events" ). Which means that perhaps the noise ratio would not be so blown out by humour as is expected. In terms of what the ideal humour ratio should be, I think something like 1:0.1 or 1:0.2 at max would be optimal. A smattering of humour.
- jasonkester 11y ago
  Yes. Extensively. The entire rest of the Internet can be considered the control group, if you like. Everywhere else allows silly one line puns to stand unswatted. And it is unbearable. Enough so that you and I are here instead. QED.
syllogism 11y ago
Jokes don't necessarily make the atmosphere friendly or relaxed. Lots of jokes are in some way cynical or sarcastic, which works much better amongst friends than amongst strangers. Jokes also make the policy of acceptability much more blurry. It's relatively easy to find broad agreement on whether a comment is true/useful/kind, than it is on whether the comment is funny.

by seren 11y ago

1arity 11y ago

Has the experiment been tried ? 6:1 seems too high. If that were what downvotes were currently suppressing, I feel we'd see a lot more illegal humorists slipping through this border control. Are downvotes really that effective a filter ? For instance, if HN downvotes don't stop the haters ( under even the extreme assumption that, on the internet, there are 10 haters to every 1 netizen ), I don't think they're stopping the X times as many humorists ( or "Humorous Comment Events" ). Which means that perhaps the noise ratio would not be so blown out by humour as is expected. In terms of what the ideal humour ratio should be, I think something like 1:0.1 or 1:0.2 at max would be optimal. A smattering of humour.

jasonkester 11y ago
Yes. Extensively. The entire rest of the Internet can be considered the control group, if you like. Everywhere else allows silly one line puns to stand unswatted. And it is unbearable. Enough so that you and I are here instead. QED.

syllogism 11y ago

Jokes don't necessarily make the atmosphere friendly or relaxed. Lots of jokes are in some way cynical or sarcastic, which works much better amongst friends than amongst strangers. Jokes also make the policy of acceptability much more blurry. It's relatively easy to find broad agreement on whether a comment is true/useful/kind, than it is on whether the comment is funny.