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Comment by ca6f08f8f8 | Hacker News Reader

You're definitely right that sarcasm isn't an HN thing. However I still get seriously worried about the personalities of the programmers here who seem unable to recognise sarcasm.

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It's not about being unable. Readers here recognize sarcasm, but they also recognize what happens to a web forum where it is allowed to proliferate. That's why https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html asks commenters not to be snarky on HN.

Lame internet humor tends to grow like kudzu, and the users who post it underestimate how lame it is, as scott_s pointed out well long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289. Sarcasm isn't quite the same but it's related.

Thanks dang. I still have one question though. If what you say is a sufficient explanation, then wouldn't we expect HN users to respond to sarcasm with "Please don't post sarcasm here", or a link to the community guidelines, rather than <response that takes the sarcastic statement at face value>?

I do however agree about the kudzu and that it is better to just keep it at zero. The purpose of my two posts here is to better understand the community within which I work, not to argue for HN policy change.

I think it's really just a numbers game. Of the thousands of people reading any comment, there's always going to be someone who for whatever reason doesn't interpret it in the obvious way. It's more likely for random reasons (e.g. not paying attention) than somehow characterological (e.g. not getting sarcasm).

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