Quality Control in Humour and Jokes

[azzaman333]

But it belongs in the funny screenshot thread rather than the funny pictures thread.

 

[frob2900]

But it belongs in the funny screenshot thread rather than the funny pictures thread.

Ah, I missed that part.. Yes, you're probably right.

 

[Stormrage]

We need to get some axes to some foreheads. Luckilly, Godwynn is doing a good job saving the Funny Pic thread almost singlehandedly..

 

[Catharsis]

It's spam...

Not really. It's a Humour and Jokes forum; these are jokes which the posters think are humourous. There was a religious debate in there at one point; that was spam. These bad jokes are no more spam than pointless discussions in OT about your hair colour.

EDIT: That's if I even agree that quality shouldn't be controlled. I don't; it should.

You're using this word 'quality'. How would you define 'quality'? Funniness? Can't do that, it's subjective. For example, (picking names purely at random here, honest guv ) superslug might find fart jokes pointless and puerile, whereas Plotinus might find them hilarious. There's no way of fairly moderating 'quality'.

 

[The Yankee]

It's spam...

Correct. A lot of the above is obviously spam and it should be taken care and reported as such.

EDIT: That's if I even agree that quality shouldn't be controlled. I don't; it should.

That's a murky territory that would just have bad consequences. Who says what's funny, since this points to the possibility of regulating the forum beyond the rules of CFC?

 

[Catharsis]

Correct. A lot of the above is obviously spam and it should be taken care and reported as such.

Could you define 'spam', and then explain how these jokes are any different, in such a sense, to (for example) cubsfan6506's 'How tall are you?' thread, which was left open in OT despite having no discussion value? Sorry, I just don't understand your point of view.

 

[Mise]

Not really. It's a Humour and Jokes forum; these are jokes which the posters think are humourous. There was a religious debate in there at one point; that was spam. These bad jokes are no more spam than pointless discussions in OT about your hair colour.

Those threads frequently get shut down in OT...


RE:

You're using this word 'quality'. How would you define 'quality'? Funniness? Can't do that, it's subjective. For example, (picking names purely at random here, honest guv ) superslug might find fart jokes pointless and puerile, whereas Plotinus might find them hilarious. There's no way of fairly moderating 'quality'.

...and...

That's a murky territory that would just have bad consequences. Who says what's funny, since this points to the possibility of regulating the forum beyond the rules of CFC?

As I said, I don't honestly expect anything to get written down in the forum rules. But in OT, there's unwritten rules about the quality and nature of posts and threads. For example, as I said, "what's your favourite colour?" threads aren't allowed, even though they're not strictly against forum rules.

OT threads have to allow for some form of discussion.

But have you ever heard a bunch of 5 year olds argue about which colour is the best? Don't tell ME that's not a real discussion! And how would you define "discussion" anyway? Who says what's discussion, and what is just immature gibberish?

The point I'm trying to make is that people use common sense. And it works in OT -- the mods use common sense to determine what spam is, and the rest of us largely go along with that, taking cues from other threads as to what is acceptable and what is not.

For a long time, it worked in H&J, too. But it stopped working, because a few people just couldn't do that. They could have looked at other threads, other pictures, other jokes, to see what kind of thing is being posted in that forum, and what kind of quality is expected. Pictures of typos in websites or a random string of words followed by "harharhar" is not the kind of quality that's expected in that forum, and not the kind of quality that we've always had.

Do you agree, at least, that the quality in H&J has deteriorated over the past year or so?

 

[Mise]

Could you define 'spam', and then explain how these jokes are any different, in such a sense, to (for example) cubsfan6506's 'How tall are you?' thread, which was left open in OT despite having no discussion value? Sorry, I just don't understand your point of view.

There was scope for discussion - e.g. do low heights mean low ages, or just that we're all really short? Do we expect to get a gaussian, or will the results be skewed since not everyone's done growing yet?

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Not really. It's a Humour and Jokes forum; these are jokes which the posters think are humourous.

Here's an idea. If i start a thread in H&J where i post hundreds of pictures of cracks in the sidewalk ?
It would be closed ??? OMG WHY ?
I think cracks in sidewalks are the funniest thing ever, therefore my thread HAS TO be allowed to exist because I think it's funny.

See where i'm getting ? Some people may CLAIM they post jokes/pics which are funny to them, but in fact they just post to increase the post count.
That is what the mods should expect if a "What a poster thinks it's funny is allowed." bill would be voted.

That's where this comes in:

The point I'm trying to make is that people use common sense. And it works in OT -- the mods use common sense to determine what spam is, and the rest of us largely go along with that, taking cues from other threads as to what is acceptable and what is not.

COMMON SENSE

I, personally, would gladly let the mods leave what THEY think it's (aproximatley) funny in H&J.
It would be more restrictive - so ? What do you think this is ? A democracy ?

Plotinus might find fart jokes hilarious.

 

[Stormrage]

If dear old Plontodendron finds fart joke hilarious, then to hell with it all!

Cata rocks. He is my new drinking buddy!

 

[nonconformist]

I emphatically agree with both Mise and Cata.

 

[Catharsis]

Heh, alright, I'm convinced. Although a crack in the ground ain't really a joke, is it?

I post mainly in Forum Games, and the post quality there... isn't great. Maybe I'm just immune to bad jokes. Apparently, I'm also a Nazi.

 

[Swedishguy]

Okay, I said I'd post examples, so here I am

"Jokes" such as:

Those jokes were taken out of context! You know nothing about humor!

 

[Truronian]

I don't really see the difference between moderating quality of discussion in OT and moderating quality of humor in H&J... I think both should be done.

 

[classical_hero]

I post mainly in Forum Games, and the post quality there... isn't great. Maybe I'm just immune to bad jokes. Apparently, I'm also a Nazi.

Well you should have no posts then.

I do agree that the quality of the Forum Games has slipped quite a bit with some people just posting the same pictures for the "Beat the picture above thread". It is quite annoying.

 

[Rambuchan]

I've been quite vocal in certain H&J threads about this, notably in the funny pictures one, and I've gotten agreement from quite a few regulars, so after the problem not being resolved, I want gto bring it to all your attentions.

Can we please institute some sort of quality rule in H&J threads? At the moment, threads which are being lurked, or contributed by people who post genuinely funny images and jokes, and therefore reserve themselves to posting only things with humourous value are being completely swamped and lost by three or four users who seem to consider those threads as a livejournal to post every asinine and trivial thought that permeates their thick skulls, and spam several posts a day.
Generally, these users are below the age of 13, have postcounts in the low thousands, of which maybe one or two might have offered some insight on something, and have the sense of humour of Adolf Eichmann.


The "Funny Pictures" thread has degraded to "post every single picture that you can screenshot of minor typos in documents, graphical glitches in games that your graphics card cannot handle, and bugs in crappy flash based games" which has constituted more or less the alst 10 pages of that thread.
The "lame jokes" thread likewise; the moniker "lame jokes" denotes a joke which makes one groan because of sheer corniness or such, notwhat it has become which is "post non sequiturs, randomness, and make up your own jokes by saying random things".

A look at the last few pages on both of these threads will show all of this.
Jokes such as
"Knock knock?
Who's there?
John?
John who?
John Doe"
are a waste of space, and are nothing but postcount raisers.

I think it says a lot that in both these threads I have been troolling by imitating other psoters and posting the most asinine thign spossible, and I have not been reprimanded by either the moderator team, or indeed other posters.

Humour and Jokes has become a desert wasteland, as many prior contributors just ignore it now, because the whole first page is full of asinine crap.

So I implore you, for the sake of quality, pleas eenforce soem kind of rule.

You need to get laid.

 

[Rambuchan]

But seriously, I agree and think that some moderation of the humour standards needs to come in. Just as there is moderation of discussion in OT.

It's that, or bring back Wickedsmurf.

 

[CartesianFart]

Just stay out of that place called Humour&Jokes if you know what is best for you. I have along time ago found out what contents are appropriate and what is not appropriate since one time I recieved many infraction on my sense of humour not being someone else.

 

[nonconformist]

You need to get laid.

Is that an offer, sugar dumpling?

 

[IglooDame]

Aside from anything else that's been mentioned, the OT mods (and since many started there, pretty much all CFC mods) had "agrees with the existing staff sense of what is discussion and what is spam" as one of the elements of being chosen in the first place. You wouldn't believe the variations in sense of humor that are the personalities in the Staff Lounge. I mean heck, just me, I thought the April Fools CivJunction bit was as funny as Robert Mugabe's impersonation of a human being, but thought Dennis Miller made Monday Night Football worth un-muting the sound.