The idea is that there are plenty of other places[1][2] to be humourous on the interwebs. By coming down hard on the few instances that are posted it stops entire threads turning into just these amusing but ultimately unproductive comments.

[1] http://www.reddit.com

[2] http://slashdot.org

I fully understand and agree with the rationale, hartror. It's just a little difficult to reign myself in and exercise the kind of self control needed here. But the inevitable and swift downvotes I've gotten certain helped to drive the point home.

I need some kind of Chrome extension that injects a confirmation dialog box that asks 'Are you trying to be funny?' before I post to HN.

edw519 regularly says something laugh-out-loud funny that also helps the conversation along, and scores a bunch of points. Other people often say things that are only slightly funny and have no other value to them, and score a bunch of negative points.

Funny and contributing = upvoted Not funny and contributing = upvoted Funny and not contributing = downvoted Not funny and not contributing = downvoted

Don't make the mistake of thinking funny/not funny is the deciding factor.