Ask HN: Why do HN users avoid humor? - dataker
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dang
HN users don't avoid humor, but most humor in internet comments is repetitive,
obvious, or otherwise a bit lame, so it tends to lower the signal/noise ratio
and get downvoted.

This is controversial because people overestimate how funny their jokes are,
especially to a large general audience, and prefer to interpret downvotes as
humorlessness of others. I think scott_s described this best:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289).
(Note the phrase, "When you have N people"—it explains many things about HN.)

HN's culture is probably also influenced by Reddit loss aversion syndrome,
given that it started as a kind of alt-Reddit (I don't want to say anti-
Reddit!) and still has the younger sibling's tendency to compare. As a
Canadian I'm tempted to say we're Canada to Reddit's U.S., but I may not be
allowed to say things like that any more.

~~~
tehwebguy
I think one of the other benefits of generally rejecting humor on HN is less
sarcasm, which seems to increase the level of conversation.

There are some "humorous" sarcastic responses to this Ask HN, even if they
_were_ funny I feel they form a dead end to the discussion.

~~~
dang
I think sarcasm is more of a problem on HN than lame humor is. Humor doesn't
always succeed, but at least it's intended to make others feel good. (Think
"good humor".) Sarcasm is only marginally related to humor. It's really about
scorn.

Sarcasm is verbal bile. It feels good to let it out, but it acidifies the
environment. It feels like you're being smart, but usually is more of a tic,
like eye-rolling. A community with high sarcasm levels is like a room full of
eye-rollers—not a great place for conversation. I think that's why you
correctly identify it as a dead end.

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kaolinite
Personally, I find Hacker News to be a breath of fresh air in that regard.
Every other discussion area on the Internet is full of jokes - some funny,
many not - and it frankly becomes tiresome after a while, everyone trying to
come up with a witty comment. There's definitely a place for that (I love a
good joke too) but I think it's great that there's a place for mainly serious
discussion. If you want a laugh, there's everywhere else on the Internet.

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bjourne
Slashdot went down the drain, in part because of "humor". All posts would be
commented with stupid permutations on the "In Soviet Russia" joke. 99.9% of
all those comments where dead boring. Just go to /. today and look at the
"funny" comments, it's just spam.

I'm a big believer in that you should do what you do best. Hackers are often
smart, informative, insightful and knowledgable about lots of stuff, but
rarely are they funny. There are way better sites to visit if you want funny.

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Red_Tarsius
HN prides itself on the insightful comment section. Each and every comment
adds depth to the conversation. No other web site fosters this culture.

I guess users avoid it for the same reason you don't tell naughty jokes in the
workplace: It's just not the right place.

On the other hand, I read many comments who were funny AND insightful,
especially in XKCD and Dilbert threads.

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Gustomaximus
In my sample of one, HN is a site to be treated differently to entertainment
sites. If you see my Reddit account under the same username its choc full of
one liners, puns and glib comments. I quite enjoy reading and making these.
Here I feel a bit like a privileged guest in that I'm marketing, not technical
and corporate, not start-up (yet atleast). I add comment only where I feel I
will give community insight, or I have a relevant question. I really enjoy HN
for what it is, even though much of the technical articles are not for me.
While humor in itself is not a bad thing here, I would hate to see HN move in
any way towards reposting, circlejerk or popularity/karma contests. For that
reason I am very selective in my votes to push comments and articles that
truly add insight/interest for the startup world, and not just something I
personaly find interesting or amusing.

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DanBC
Many interesting online communities have suffered greatly because bad humor
becomes one of the acceptable memes and thus derails any thread that mentions
one of the meme trigger words - a cascade of posts follow that everybody has
read before.

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partisan
As long as there is truth in your humor or humor in your truth then I think it
has a place here. I don't avoid it, myself.

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eli_gottlieb
Because most people don't get most people's jokes. It's why we have TV
comedians: to create a _collective_ reservoir of commonly-known humor, no
matter how low-brow.

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JacobAldridge
As noted by others, we don't avoid humor we avoid the obvious, the
superficial, and that insidious community-killer 'the in-joke'.

Throwaway lines are rarely well received because they add minimal value (if
any) to the conversation, which is HN's primary criteria. Where humor is well
done, and adds value, I've always found it to be well received.

See, for example, one of my 'highest rated' comments in a discussion about
'The Miracle of Compound Interest'. The OP (now offline, so iirc) argued in
favor of higher estate taxes because compound interest over future centuries
guarantees wealth would become unfairly distributed to a small number of
families. I chose humor to pick holes in the theory rather than economics -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=812221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=812221)

[Edit] I realised some throwaway lines do add value, when I remembered this
comment in a discussion about eating bark after the collapse of civilization
received even more love than the OP -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842857](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842857)

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minimaxir
The issue isn't that Hacker News isn't a more serious site; the real issue is
that most people are _bad at humor._ HN submissions like "My startup is the
Uber for hipsters!" or "Top 10 ways to #disrupt" done ironically is not biting
satire. (please don't do ether unironically.)

Posts and comments which are more lighthearted but still provide additional
insight are fine, though.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8140290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8140290)

Yes, I am being a little hypocritical with that example. :p

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bdcravens
A lot of humor you see on other sites tends to devolve towards perversion; I
think the programmer community is a bit more sensitive towards sexism.
Moreover, the goal is to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio, and as seen on
Reddit, it's very easy for the conversation to turn into mostly dad jokes and
links to "meme" images.

On a related note, I'm surprised that ChangeTip hasn't been implemented here
(though if it were, I imagine it would quickly get banned)

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snarkyturtle
There are lots of avenues for humorous programming jokes, Twitter and reddit
being the most common. HN's system isn't exactly robust so I figure people
stick to those other avenues because they get the most gratification (through
upvotes and retweets).

HN's always been sort of a refuge from those sites for that reason. It's a
place to discuss software seriously.

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monroepe
Yeah for some reason this is one of the few places online where I don't feel
like trolling. It's weird.

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proactivesvcs
I don't, but I'm new here. I'll just hide behind my dry British wit; it's done
me sterling service so far.

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ddorian43
Because it's hard to be funny, most people aren't funny.

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VOYD
Because humor is dead.

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0xdeadbeefbabe
Because HN users are afraid of downvotes.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Very funny.

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MalcolmDiggs
Because fuck you, that's why.

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vgeek
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTOuGZvR9dQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTOuGZvR9dQ)

