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> HN has no sense of humor. (Downvotes and arrest are radically different punishments, but I'm guessing you realize that, so setting that aside...) I haven't read the pg essay you're referencing. I've been smacked down for a joke here or there, spent some time wondering about the same thing. HN seems influenced partly by a frustration with other aggregators, forums. There's an explicit desire to prevent the slide towards irrelevance. Comedy and drama never compete on a level playing field, true of forums, or in any other arena. Probably because they just aren't commensurable, and don't belong on the same scale. You can't really compare Airplane!, The Shining, or Before Sunset. They're all just completely different experiences. If people take something very seriously, like the Oscars, they tend to ignore comic achievements. If people are quickly flipping through the internet out of boredom, it can swing the other way. One of the best moderation systems for cultivating both at the same time is over at Slashdot, where you can mod something up as "funny," "insightful," or "informative." Then readers can filter comments based on which of these they'd rather see. Everyone's experience is customized, and the "funny" upvotes are just on a completely separate scale. All moderation systems and interfaces involve tradeoffs though, and HN seems to pride itself on simplicity. The simple interface, combined with the desire to escape the trivial tone of Reddit, pushes to a more serious discussion, maybe one that takes itself a little too seriously. But that seems a fair balance against the rest of the Internet, which probably doesn't take itself seriously at all. That said, you can do humor on HN, you just have to know your audience. I wouldn't use "The Aristocrats" with my family at dinner, on HN, I'd stick to incredibly dry long form satire reminiscent of Jonathan Swift. Really, anything that would appeal to the humor of someone living in the Victorian era should work. Less LOL, more HVD (for "how very droll"). |