[spery]

As it should. Empty comments posted for the giggles of author (and maybe a few others) would just add too much spam. Look at what reddit grew into, you have templates of comments and meta comments everywhere, very low quality content.

[jjgreen]

An appropriate HN comment: "Shouldn't that be 'April Fool's day"? ... [long thread about whether singular or plural]

[krapp]

Reddit still has plenty of high quality content, even with the jokes and meta-commentary. And much of the humorless content on HN isn't exactly high quality.

Indeed, the humorlessness of this place tends to encourage tedious pedantry and vindictive sniping.

[spery]

Totally agree. I feel its too hard to strike a balance between the two.

[collyw]

I like humor, it's just especially rare to see it here. We put up with plenty of other stuff that I consider spam but is clearly of interest to others here.