When Did Humour Become Spam?

[AmtrakQuebec]

You see this on so many sites these days, particularly American ones. Political correctness run amok I guess but otherwise I just can't explain this absurd reaction to humour. What exactly is so wrong with trying to make people laugh? I mean, as the saying goes, it is supposedly the best medicine, and even doctors will agree it is good for your health. So why on earth do so many sites endeavour to curtail this type of well-intentioned behaviour by dumping it into the spam bin?

Shouldn't sites be encouraging laughter over hate?

I'm very curious about this.

 

[Senethro]

Any particular kind of humour the amok PC is stamping out?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Not everyone sees the same things as being funny.

For instance, some people think it's hilarious to post a photo of a cat stuffed into a microwave. To me it's abhorrent, given the number of cats that have been tortured and killed in microwaves by some truly evil people.

Ditto cats stuffed into casserole dishes and put on an oven rack, or stuffed into a blender, or a goldfish bowl, wrapped in plastic bags or cellophane, or put into situations where they could strangle... all for the sake of a cheap giggle by twisted people who frequent certain websites (before anyone reminds me that I'm known to frequent I Can Has Cheezburger?, I will remind them in turn that such photos are against that site's rules, and I flag them as abusive - which they are).


One of the rules on CFC (and some other forums) is that you can't post just a smiley in response to a post. There are times when it should be apparent that a smiley is the only appropriate response to a post.

We actually experimented on one of my forums - we had a thread in which conversations had to contain as many smileys as possible, and the challenge was to figure out what people were really saying.

It worked pretty well, actually.

 

[Ryika]

I too am very irritated by sites that think of jokes as spam, particularly when these sites seem to be rather picky with what is spam and what is not.

I'm a member in many websites, and it was just a few days ago that I saw on a social media site (won't name the name, because why make it that personal?) how a post that only contained a joke and an image was labeled as spam, while another post that only contained a joke but not an image even got moderators respond to it and drag the conversation further away from the topic that was being discussed, even though the level of humor was more or less on the exact same level.

So on some social media sites, apparently it's about the amount of space a post takes up, if you make a joke that's short, then that's fine, if you make a joke that's a bit longer, then that's seen as spam. Of course at the same time, if your post is too short, that could also be seen as spam. Many rules to follow there, and in general, it seems like a game of rock-paper-scissors for users to move around the arbitrariness of rule enforcement on those social media sites.

 

[CavLancer]

When did CFC start again?

 

[JollyRoger]

October 14, 2001

 

[CavLancer]

Thanks. We have an answer.

 

[Synobun]

Moderator Action: Thread locked. Since this comes immediately after a joke reply of yours being infracted for spam, it could be argued that this is an attempt at subtle PDMA. If you are serious about wanting to discuss spam policy and how that applies to joke replies here on CFC, you are more than welcome to make a thread in Site Feedback about it where it can be properly discussed between members and CFC staff.

Do note however that PDMA rules still apply regardless of the policy being called into question. Don't discuss specific moderator actions. You can find the PDMA rules here.