The long answer involves a lot of talk about how it degrades the site.
The short answer is that since people, last I checked, were animals who joked, and computers were made for people, not the other way around, the site should support joking and flag/hide jokes appropriately depending on user preferences.
I'm okay with it either way. I don't think of the humorless nature of HN as being some huge asset. In fact, it makes the place stuffy and overly earnest. Dare I say artificially boring. But I understand the reasoning behind the community's standards. I just think like everything else there is a proper mix in life. Finding the right mix for a social site seems to be a critical factor.
By the way, humor doesn't completely go away. People still sneak it in here or there. You're just forced to follow it with something of value to the conversation. This eliminates the hit-and-run snarky one-liners found on so many other sites.
Comments
The long answer involves a lot of talk about how it degrades the site.
The short answer is that since people, last I checked, were animals who joked, and computers were made for people, not the other way around, the site should support joking and flag/hide jokes appropriately depending on user preferences.
I'm okay with it either way. I don't think of the humorless nature of HN as being some huge asset. In fact, it makes the place stuffy and overly earnest. Dare I say artificially boring. But I understand the reasoning behind the community's standards. I just think like everything else there is a proper mix in life. Finding the right mix for a social site seems to be a critical factor.
By the way, humor doesn't completely go away. People still sneak it in here or there. You're just forced to follow it with something of value to the conversation. This eliminates the hit-and-run snarky one-liners found on so many other sites.