Where does humor fit into Fluther?

It will almost certainly get moderated if it happens in the thread (meaning a thread seeking a serious answer) before a serious response has been posted. After that, though, fire away.

For every funny comment , you receive an extra special prize . The prize could be many things , you really aim for the top . Looks like this
Removed by Fluther moderators This is your prize for these comments .

@Harp See, that’s where funny comments are the best. Most of the times if I see someone has already answered the question I don’t post my humorous response. It doesn’t have the same effect if your reading down the thread and there’s just this one joke in the middle of a bunch of serious answers.

@J0E Sometimes thats the better place for such comments, it breaks the seriousness of the question i lightens the mood in the thread . A funny remark is funny , regardless of where it is .

And also, how can someone be expected to save their comment? Am I supposed to keep a journal of my humorous responses and set a reminder to post them later on?

There is truth in humor.
Some are willing to look for it.
Others are not.

I love to see humor here. Joe, I also can think of a funny come back with almost every question put on here. I did add humor once, & got slammed for it by a member who’s no longer on here. The mods said nothing to me. When one loses their sense of humor, get away from me.

Where’s Astrochuck to answer this?

@J0E Yes, that’s absolutely true, but Andrew put it this way: Imagine that a new user posts a serious question and gets an email saying “Great news! Somebody answered your question!” (or whatever it says), and they click through only to find that it’s a joke.

@Harp…and gets a chuckle out of it.

It’s all how you look at it.

@J0E Right, but it’s precisely because we don’t know how the asker is going to look at it that we refrain (and believe me, I understand the temptation).

http://static.episode39.it/artist/4226.jpg
Humor. I love it.

I suppose humor has no place as the first response, but further down the line after the serious responses have been worked out, I see no problem with it. if you don’t have a sense of humor, you were put on this planet by mistake.

sometimes people mistake a real comment for humor because it’s not framed as a super-serious, button-down, stick-up-your-ass answer. usually it just means they take things at face value.

I think we all often enjoy comments that we think are funny, although your joke might be my below-the-belt hit. I am delighted when I can, in my eyes, fire off a witticism. However, the accepted convention of this community is that the first answer has to be serious, for the reasons Harp explained above. You will get modded if you unleash a joke before then. Deal with it.

I put a bunch of light hearted responses as the first answer and haven’t really gotten many of them modded.

Humor is part of what makes fluther so enjoyable. Because you get not only great, helpful responses, but fun and wit is sprinkled throughout all of it as well.

Keep in mind that not only does a joke as a first response run the risk of discouraging or alienating a new user (who may not be familiar with your sense of humor), it often derails the entire thread into a series of jokes, come-backs, and chatty comments.

And keep in mind also that what the writer thinks is witty, humorous or hysterically funny may not strike all readers as such. I sometimes can guess the jokes about to arrive by either who is composing or the tenor of the question.

I believe that how well humor is taken on Fluther depends on the author.

Humor is more likely to be tolerated from Flutherites with more mainstream politics and philosophy.

Agreed @J0E: What am i supposed to do? Command- C all my comments?

When I first joined here, I didn’t see much humor. I thought OMG…what a downer place this is. Such serious people. Does no one ever have any fun here? But I stuck it out & see humor here a lot. What a relief.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv: Sometimes a little pause for reflection and editing is not a bad thing.

@J0E – I think you’re being a little inflexible here. I post humorous responses all the time. Hell, Astrochuck hit 20k before anyone BECAUSE of his witty comments. But it makes 100% perfect sense that if someone seeks a serious response, it’s just proper decorum to not make a joke until after they have gotten the serious response, and yes, people WILL read your comment even if it isn’t the first one, that’s just silly. If it’s really a problem that you are ALWAYS seeing these questions before anyone else has a chance to answer them, and these quips are coming to your head ONLY the first time you see the question, then I suggest you refrain from looking at the question until it’s been up for ½ an hour and you’ll probably be fine, then the first time you see it, you will have your witty remark come to mind and you’ll be able to post it because it will already have some good answers.

As for @Noel_S_Leitmotiv‘s suggestion that it depens on who is making the joke, I reject that. Yes, Fluther is operated by people with a very liberal philosophical bent, but in my experience, they have bent over backwards to accomdate all points of view, as long as the people aren’t resorting to name calling and personal attacks (and again, they want at least one serious response before you make jokes, which when you think about it, if the first comment is a joke, that just encourages everyone to make light of the question). Indeed, the very first person I EVER saw banned from Fluther was the most liberal person I’ve EVER met on line…he kept name calling Conservatives, and it just wasn’t right, so he was gone. I suggest if you ever feel that your comments are targeted because of your political views, it makes a HELL of a lot more sense to take your concerns to the MODS rather than air your dirty laundry in public. I know this from personal experience, I’ve called them out more than once, where I was ready for an all out pissing match, and ultimately I ended up understanding what the real problem was when I actually communicated directly with them.

Thanks @dalepetrie

@dalepetrie Okay, so you are actually suggesting that I refrain from looking at a question for a half hour before I comment? Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a pain at all.

GQ @J0E

@J0E: You could click “Follow this Question” to be made aware of when others have posted replies, and then choose whether your quip should be added or not.

:: hopes andrew knows I’m not trying to be difficult ::

@JOE: Are you assuming that Fluther’s end-all and be-all is to spare you putative pain?

Here’s the deal.

Those one liners that you want to write? 95% of the time, they’re not funny. They’re either sarcastic or snarky and serve not to help the person asking the question, but to get a quick laugh.

How do I know this? Because I troll this site all day and all I do is come up with one liners. Why does my fireplace smoke? Because quitting is hard.

The reason we instituted the rule is because we’d start with a joke, then the tone was set, then we’d get a bunch of people trying to top each other, and the answer would never come. That’s all.

@andrew & @gailcalled Thank you & lurve

@J0E Your “jokes” smell like trolling to me. There’s plenty o’ fun here in Fluther, but at the expensive of others is no more appropriate here than in real life.

Well-asked Q though.

I’m suprised people don’t approach something called the World Wide Web with a thicker skin.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv Yeah, there’s that, but I’m also surprised that on the web, people stop caring about the effects their words will have on others.

I’ll be the first to admit I say things that people don’t want to hear, such is striving for intellectual honesty.

@SpatzieLover Trolling is not something I take lightly, as an administrator for my own site I have dealt with trolls before, it is something I would never do.

@J0E This is not wis.dm.

@SpatzieLover I don’t appreciate you generalizing about me because I am from wis.dm. I’m not trying to do anything that you have accused me of, and I most certainly am not a troll.

@J0E – no, it doesn’t sound like a pain to me. Basically, I get these notifications if there’s a question for me which is sent to me based on the topics of interest I’ve selected I assume. How about using that feature and working backwards, oldest question first. Or, if you look at ALL the questions and don’t rely on the questions for you tab, go down a couple pages and work backwards. Problem solved. Unless you’re sitting there all day long just waiting for new questions to pop up, I fail to see what the issue could be with refraining from looking at a question the very second it pops up on your screen. I’m sorry, but this is a community website, not one tailored to give you questions when you’re ready to deal with the consequences of what spews forth from your brain. And hey, if a quip is REALLY all that funny that others would appreciate it if you shared it, I have a hard time believing you wouldn’t remember it if you came back to the question later. Maybe you need to carry around one of those little “note to self” tape recorders? Just saying, I don’t think it’s a rule that should cause you undue distress or which should make you change your modus operandi all that much unless you’re a bit OCD and can’t resist being FIRST!

Wow.

It’s not that I have to be first, I just think there the most funny when posted first. I’m really not that upset over it, I know most people think when someone asks a question about Fluther it means they are mad about something but I’m really not.

P.S. Just to be clear, you told me it’s not a pain but also suggested carrying a tape recorder…

A humorous response is funnier if it’s posted first. It’s an understood law of comedy.

To me a humorous comment is funny only when it’s funny. Look at the last line of “Some Like it Hot.”

I like humour, but I think the best protocol is to pair a legitimate answer with the joke.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv No. An understood rule of comedy would be timing…another, actual humor.

[mod says]: Ok all… simmer down now. SIMMAH DAHN NAH!

@SpatzieLover: Yes, timing, hense my reply.

Regarding actual humor, I’m sophisticated enough to know when something’s funny even if I don’t agree with the content.

Just to clarify, my suggestion is it’s not a pain to me, but IF it’s a pain to you, then that’s an option. Not trying to bust your balls, just trying to say that funny is funny whether it’s first or 10th and so I reject the reasons you give for this being problematic, as a) they don’t seem problematic to me (or anyone else so far), and b) if they are problematic to you, there are other effective ways to deal with it (such as some of the suggestions I or other made). No intention of flaming or angering anyone, just giving my honest opinion, take it or leave it.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv For clarification, I thought the same thing when I first entered Fluther why are they modding my joke? Just cuz it’s first? Then I realized how much better it was in here vs. other Q & A sites.

Timing. Let actual answerers get a shot at the Q first, otherwise your “joke” answer could set a bad tone for the future answers.

I agree @SpatzieLover: I refrain from making a humorous reply first not just because it sets the wrong tone but because it’s frowned upon.

That said, if my legitimate reply can be conveyed with humor I will proceed. I believe humor is one way one can dispense advice without sounding like preaching.

I’d agree with you, @Noel_S_Leitmotiv, I think if I can incorporate humor into a serious answer which happens to be first, I think that’s OK. But I don’t follow this rule of not posting an off handed funny comment first because it’s against the rules, I do it because I understand and respect why the mods HAVE this rule. Truly it makes for a better quality experience overall.

It fits between the shoulder & elbow. Where does yours fit?
See ya….Gary/wtf

ok everyone why so serious?

;P @J0E

GAx2

I think @Noel_S_Leitmotiv Brings up a good point. It’s not that humor at all is discouraged or moderated. It’s the first response one-liners that are—and I think we all can get the difference.

They’re cheap laughs anyway, and a short jump away from “FIRST LOL” you get on, say, perez hilton.

@J0E Often times, my first thought at a response is humorous (at least to me), but I don’t put it down. I just wait, usually not long at all, for someone else to answer, and then I put mine down. However, as @andrew says, what I think is funny doesn’t often tickle anyone else’s funnybone, judging by the lurve (or lack thereof) I receive.

Then again, as everyone knows, I never say anything humorous, so this post is just a bunch of malarkey. I just humor myself that sometimes I might be humorous.

Your mom fits into Fluther.

I’m the admitted old fashioned prude on this site, and I rarely laugh at any of the so-called jokes posted here. If I want jokes, I go the jokes.com or similar. To me, most of the jokes posted here cater to the adolescent or purient sense of humor, and I just don’t find that funny.

If I find a joke particularly offensive, I will often comment about it, and if I read something that makes me laugh, I say so, and thank the user for saying it. I don’t see this type of feedback as any different from any other feedback.

I’m listening to ‘Rubber Glove Seduction’ by Programming the Psychodrill….

This has been tough for me too, trying to remain all on topic and serious. My flavor of humor stays pretty much pent up in facebook land and at one time, the fluther campfire chatroom which I’ve no idea how to access anymore :(

<—King of cheap laughs

@AstroChuck King? My God, man, you are the Holy freakin’ Emperor of Cheap Laughs!

I’m glad you posted on here because I think you are one person who posts humor but gets ridiculous amounts a lurve for it.

@AstroChuck that’s shameful. you should be serious all the time, non-stop. i’m, frankly, disgusted by humor on fluther.~ after all, how is kty12535b gonna know if someone is “really into her” or not if you’re joking all the time?!

I love those questions, it’s like free range to let the jokes fly.

“Why does my fireplace smoke? Because quitting is hard.” lol4rl thank you for the cheap laugh andrew :)

@uberbatman the alternative answer is “because i’m that good.”

Am I late?

@eponymoushipster – that’s not what your mother said!

@Zen yes

@uberbatman If you like that you should check out my answer.

Down with humor. I hate to laugh. I hate the way it makes me feel good. Humor—boo, hiss. Please. I want nothing but SERIOUS, and the stress that can come with it.

It seems to me that the creators of the site have incorporated a lot of humor into it…the funny things at the top right like, “You make great brownies!” and the thing you get when you click on an account that’s been canceled, about “Boy do we feel bad!” But when all is said and done, it’s the members who create the spirit over time.

@Val123 Haha, I love those little things. I always think to myself how humorous and cute those one-liners are. I especially like “you’ve got something in your teeth. left. other left. got it” or whatever it is, haha

@deni At the moment apparently I look smashing….I’m not sure that’s a compliment, though!!