Ask HN: Why does HN hate humor? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why does HN hate humor?

24 pointspontus42 comments

I understand that HN tries to be pretty on topic & focused and does not appreciate unrelated comments etc. As such silly jokes etc are generally frowned upon.

However, humor can also be used to get a nontrivial point across and doesn't have to be "empty of content". It seems to me that the same point phrased as a declarative statement vs a joke are received completely differently.

For example,

1. "Tesla is overvalued because of x, y, z."

2. "Just read about x, y, z. Better call my broker and dump some shares."

Sometimes the addition of humor can show just how silly the context is, something that a formal declarative statement cannot.

So, why does HN hate humor?

View on HN

HN doesn't "hate humor." It just is picky about its humor.

HN hates lazy comments.

HN hates ugly comments and a lot of humor is both lazy and ugly.

HN intentionally and consciously seeks to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high. Humor tends to harm the signal-to-noise ratio, which further fuels HN pickiness about what kind of humor is acceptable here.

Humor on the internet is inherently challenging because it often relies on voice tone, body language and other cues to signal "This is a joke." On the internet, memes substitute imagery in a way that helps provide visual cues and the formatting here doesn't support communicating in that style, which makes humor even more challenging on HN.

If you are looking for light-hearted snark for some reason, HN is really not the place for that. There are plenty of places to find that and that's just not the purpose of this site.

HN hates lazy comments.

A clever or insightful joke may be upvoted, particularly if it is followed by thoughtful exploration of the topic. But "one liners," like your example, are just lazy and offer no insight or in any way elevate the conversation.

Generally speaking if you want lazy retorts and memes, Reddit or Twitter already caters to that very well. HN is something else, and two things can exist to fill different niches.

I echo this a lot but every subreddit is different, some will also be like HN, others like 4chan, so get to know your sub before dropping the puns. And some subs have other weird downvoting cultures where if you trip the wrong wire you get obliterated.

I'm familiar with reddit/AskHitorians. Any other good subreddit like that one that you know of?

r/askscience might be the closest one in terms of strict moderation and not tolerating off-topic/joke/anecdotal (or otherwise unscientific, obviously) stuff; you'll mostly find high-quality answers submitted by the verified panelists of the sub.

> HN hates lazy comments.

We really don't. It's not difficult to find plenty of hyperbole, boilerplate polemic and low-effort cynicism which gets voted up (or at least not voted down) and many comments here have no more effort or insight put into them than a joke or a meme. Most people here don't even seem to bother reading the linked articles, they just riff on whatever they think the title is about on first glance.

It's mostly elitism. Jokes and memes are associated with the commoners on Reddit and there is nothing Hacker News despises so much as being considered common.

It's also particularly ironic, given how many brilliant thinkers also had great (and sometimes even puerile) senses of humor. There was plenty of humor on USENET and BBSs in the halcyon days of hacker culture that HN looks back on so fondly. Obviously humor and intellect aren't inversely related but a lot of people here seem to believe so.

I think this is actually pretty spot on. The same, ironically, goes for comments that espouse a view that's contrarian against the already contrarian HN perspective. I say ironically because in many ways HN prides itself with being contrarian.

As someone with fond memories of the Usenet and bulletin boards, I recognize my fondness is for the pure joy of writing what is easy to write. Snark, sarcasm, flame bait, and utterances from beneath a bridge. Fondness of writing for an endless stream of billy goats as an audience. Fondness for competitive typing. Fondness for not knowing better. For not holding myself accountable. Fondness for the rationalizations of a bully.

There's lots of crap on HN. Because it's still the internet. Just because there's a lower ratio of crap because it's HN doesn't mean people won't go out of their way to crap on it.

Indeed. Humor is fine, provided it's used to advance the discussion. Looking back at my comment history, plenty of highly voted ones started with or included something humorous.

Example: On designers worrying about losing work to 99designs...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2378303

Stupid joke to illustrate a point, followed by actionable advice.

Personal opinion only ...

HN doesn't hate humour, there are cases of humour not merely tolerated, but significantly up-voted.

But most of the things people try to pass off as humour are simply just not funny to a large enough proportion that they get down-voted and flagged. Most of the "funny comments" are tired, derivative, old, or predictable riffs on things we've seen far too often. Some of us have been around a long time, and when we see things like this we just sigh. It's tedious.

Your comment (2) above, for example, just really isn't funny. It's common, unoriginal, uninformative, unhelpful, and just ... not funny.

HN has institutional memory against the dangers of Eternal September.

Humor is easy because it barely needs to engage with the post or comment it's under to be considered a valid "joke comment".

An insightful or deeply curious comment is harder, because it more strongly needs to engage with the content in order to be a valid "insightful comment" or "insightful question".

Sometimes HN upvotes humor, when the humor offers insight or a clever summation of something.

Refugees from Reddit learn quickly that going for the funny quip or the easy jab is just as likely to get downvoted as upvoted.

The HN bar for clever is relatively high. And HN lacks a sense of humor about Tesla and all else Musk. So either you don't know your audience or you're stirring up bad feeling. Dismissing a context as "silly" is not intellectually interesting and someone is the butt of the joke, which makes it less of a joke. Unless the silly person is you and you are the butt of your own self-deprecation.

Good humor is humorous. There's something for people to get. And when they get it they feel good. They don't feel mocked They don't feel stupid - except in a "I wish I had said that" sense. It might start a conversation. But it won't start an argument. Good humor doesn't tell people "I'm clever." It shows them.

Good humor is good humored. Good luck.

Oh really. A close look from someone experienced on most topics will reveal the opposite. Tech discussions at least are pretty shallow or mis informed and usually limited to a few recycled topics. Easy to appear clever in front of impressionable fresh graduates but most experts will immediately see through most comments. But hey whatever suits the echo chamber.

I don't think HN hates humour, but I personally don't like humour that doesn't add anything extra to the conversation. The current pattern I have noticed a lot goes like this:

> Topic: Service X just launched

> Comment: LOL I just read X as Y, and was imagining Z as a far-fetched consequence

Sometimes the commenter doesn't even imagine a Z and just explains a brief moment of confusion instead.

Versus a more concrete example of something I enjoyed recently:

> Topic: I wish there was an unstable AWS region to test the resiliency of my app

> Comment: They have one already, it's called us-east-1.

That wasn't hated (as I saw it) or even necessarily off-topic.

You're right that humour can help bring certain things to light where a more courtly scenario might not. I'd posit that the opposite is also true where a space with more formality can also be helpful. Each sort of space has its strengths, and it helps to participate in a variety in order to be well-rounded.

One thing I like about Hacker News is that since humour isn't centred as much, crass ideas can't be cloaked in a joke and get a pass. I'll go into some Discord channel and see borderline-insensitive memes be normalized as they're "just joking" or "didn't mean any harm". That thing doesn't happen as much here as those memes would fall flat when presented plainly.

Humor is incredibly subjective. In general, a person's humor is substantially less funny to others than it is to themselves (this is a cognitive bias that professional comedians have to train themselves out of).

In the case of HN, it has rules against noisy comments, further fighting against making bad jokes.

The one time I made a successful joke on HN was when Uber announced UberPool, and I made a comment asking if Uber is going into the swimming business.

That may be, but my impression is not that the comments are downvoted because they're not funny, but rather because they attempt to be funny. In other words, the content of the comment could be really insightful, but if it's phrased as a(n attempted) joke, it gets downvoted.

That’s interesting in that I don’t find the pool joke funny said like that now, but given the context of that thread and the timing (what Uber was up to etc. at that time) I may have found it funny.

I dislike humor on HN (but don't mind it in more light-hearted places, everything has a time and a place) for two reasons.

a. It crowds out other content.

b. It's harder to argue against a point made as a joke. Consider your examples. Let's say there is an issue with argument y. It's much more natural to point out in phrasing 1, than in phrasing 2. You look like someone who doesn't get that it's just a joke and there were some artistic liberties taken. So y is allowed to stand uncontested.

Let's not forget the endless stream of commenters on other platforms who troll, are called on it, and then backpedal by claiming that it was a joke and everyone else can't take a joke. I enjoy that HN is a place where that tactic falls flat because most humor is frowned on.

Humor is like seasoning: it enhances the meal; it is not the meal.

When a comment has substance (food/meal), humor can enhance it (seasoning).

Furthermore, not all humor attempts are funny. Even professional comedians "bomb".. We can't force people.

This, or the jokes go unnoticed because of HN's small font size.

See above comment for a great example of a perfectly executed HN joke that will not be hated/downvoted.

The bulk of the comment is not the joke, both in number of words, and ideas.

This would not only get a pass, but it would likely be recognized as a great comment in a more popular thread.

I disagree with the premise of your question. I don't think "HN hates humor" is true. But I think it is true that humor is only appreciated here on a very limited basis, and if it's done in a specific way. Most really obvious puns, gags, meme references, etc. are devoid of value and don't go over well here. But sometimes one does find a way to say something that's meaningful and funny at the same time, and I've seen those posts get upvoted.

Several of the comments mention that HN hates lazy comments. That may be, but HN does often hate humor. This is most often dependent upon the thread in question as the subject dictates the audience

1 some people are fully incapable of accepting sarcasm even when something is deliberately expressed using the word sarcasm

2 some people are easily offended and deliberately search for hostility even where none was intended

3 for some people everything is a political holy war. I have noticed that many of these commenters seems to only participate on threads of extreme social commentary lacking any hint of technical or business concern, which could suggest selective participation in subjects lacking expertise. I have also noticed that some of the highest karma HN users skillfully bait such threads

I have also noticed humor is more likely to be positively accepted when it is clever enough to escape notice by people merely skimming and when avoiding subject matter solely limited to social commentary. In these cases the humor in question can even be vaguely insulting or insensitive and still receive a positive response unlike the contrary where you have to tip toe across egg shells.

Humor on HN depends on 3 things:

1. Is it original?

2. Is it clever?

3. Am I in the mood for humor?

In the extremely rare cases where these three points converge, a black swan event occurs, the crystal is healed by Gelfling hand, and your comment gets upvoted.

I think it depends solely on one thing: Does it add to the topic at hand in a way that promotes intelligent conversation?

Lazy or dismissive humour doesn't. It usually is a stopping point, or results in a thread of follow-up jokes deviating further and further from the actual conversations, each one trying to out-clever the previous one - a distraction far away from what was posted and intended.

That's what usually gets downvoted or outright rejected on HN.

Humor has its place in the world, but its value is fleeting. Ever heard the same joke repeated? It’s almost never funny the second time. Whereas serious information can be just as valuable or even more valuable on a second readthrough. This is what keeps HN posts relatively evergreen.

I do generally dislike strangers trying to be humorous. Both online and offline.

Extremely hard to do intentional humor without hostility, ridicule, some in-group context or plain silliness.

Unsolicited humor is also hard to respond to. You can ignore the joke which may be seen as rude. You can go along with it which you may not want to. You can respond in a serious manner which is awkward. Especially awkward when you actually disagree with the point the joke is making.

> Sometimes the addition of humor can show just how silly the context is, something that a formal declarative statement cannot.

You can reduce something to an absurdity. Which may even make for an amusing statement, but not a humorous one. If the joke is actually making a point there are certainly numerous rhetorical devices to convey it.

HN is more 'serious' than Reddit or Twitter. It's one of the main reasons I come back.

Allowing memes and jokes might have more comments with more votes but it wouldn't add any value to the site in my opinion.

Just to pile on, and as an excuse to share one of the funniest lines I’ve read on the Internet, let me tell you about an online exchange that would play well here.

A Russian poster was discussing a Russian word that had no English translation...I forget the exact word, so let’s say it was быть. Another poster asked the Russian how to pronounce the word. The Russian’s response? “быть”. A sharp wit is always welcome, especially if it comes from “a good place”.

The way I try to do it is that always add a comment with substance/value and then if it accompanied by slight humor sometimes, it is ok in my opinion. I am human and have sometimes broken this rule myself but I totally understand why HN is so strict about it.

The danger of a purely joke comment is that it can open up a whole thread of more jokes and it ultimately is just noise and reduces the quality of discourse on the actual topic.

Your example isn't funny, it's just a clichéd way of emphasizing a point.

It's hard to come up with something funny to say on the spot, but thanks for sort of making my point.

Exactly. It's rare that a jokey reply is good. What do you expect?

An example of what works written since your question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25281611

Clever, not at anyone’s expense and absurd to disagree with.

As per this comment from dang, borrowed from scott_s - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18284457

> Most people overrate how funny their jokes are

In my observation, message board attempts at humour are often just sarcasm, which feels like humour to the writer, but to most readers it just comes over as bitterness, which is not funny or enjoyable to read at all.

Jokes that actually land go really well on HN.

I understand you're pretty funny as a dee-jay and, well, comedy is kind of a hobby of mine. Well, actually, it's a little more than just a hobby, Reader's Digest is considering publishing two of my jokes.

Yeah. And perhaps some night we could maybe get together and swap humorous stories, for fun.

See what I just said here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25280095

There is humor here, but this ain't reddit.

Indeed.

On reddit, everything needs to be a joke. That's what gets upvoted.

On HN, everything needs to show some depth and insight. That's what gets upvoted.

If HN readers want to read an endless stream of jokes, they will go to reddit. I'm sure most of us have reddit accounts.

We go to different websites for different purposes.

Not rocket surgery.

Simple humour.

Well crafted jokes fly.

I've seen it.

For the same reason HN hates humor, insightful commentary here will be downvoted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com