Is there any room for humor in ATS?

reply to post by chapter29

A GREAT thread in deed!

Springer...

ATS is about professionalism, very little humor. Everything else, BTS. But then again, there will always be the troublemakers, idiots...and so on. BTS

Originally posted by Duzey
reply to post by '___'eed

 

I'm not allowed to kill members. Only Admin can do that.

Indeed.

And only the Site Owners can bring members back to life. It's the ATS Circle of Life

The humor in this thread has gotten out of control, I hope that everyone gets back On Topic soon.

reply to post by Phage



I think it's a wonderful question, one that has been on my mind for a while now.
(How do you think I unearthed this thread? :-))
Well done for bringing it up.

Humour is not only a blessing: it's the one sure sign of true intelligence.
Which is why I must - reluctantly - disagree with your observation that the general level of intelligence seen here is "above average".
Admittedly, I do not believe in the notion of "average" (I really don't; to me, it's a worthless statistic gimmick), but a frighteningly high number of postings really do show no receptiveness to (intelligent) humour - NONE whatsoever.

Obviously, I don't think it's an ATS only phenomenon, far from it (I wish it were confined to the visitorship of just one website!).
But considering the numbers of people who visit this website the overall status of intelligence in the world-wide communication web just doesn't look good...

On the subject of one-liners (which I brought up myself, once upon a time), I think that it takes very great intelligence and/or capacty of synthesis an/or humour (depending on the context, of course) to encapsulate a thought or feeling into just a few words.
Succinct and expressive wording is an ART: a (potential) masterpiece of human expression. (An art that was even encouraged by certain enlightened rulers of yore.)

As it is, it looks like this website, as so many others - and this is in no way intended to be disparaging to the moderators here - is slowly but surely yielding to the rule of the lowest common denominator.
As I said, this is not a criticism of the moderators; after all, what can you do? You cannot enforce a level of intelligence, or education - or humour - greater than what every individual poster has at his/her disposition.
But intelligent "one-liners" should definitely be encouraged, not discouraged.
And, in REALITY, I don't think they are being "persecuted" as furiously as one would have thought judging by the many wary comments about them. I think they are being dealt with individually - as they should be.


P.S. I can't give you a star, so I gave "you" a flag instead, even though I don't think I'll be returning to read this thread (or any other) all that often.

P.P.S. I LOVED your "marital aid" non-thread.
But maybe it is just me...












[edit on 14-10-2008 by Vanitas]

reply to post by Phage


Is there any room for humor in ATS?

Well I just got banned for life from the local swimming baths for wearing my Speedo trunks.
How was I to know the S had fallen off.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by karl 12




(Not even a half-liner!)

Given the title of this thread...

I just had too do it.....



Ironic?

HAHAHA......hmmm *sigh*

Fox.

Originally posted by violet
There was one member on here - haven't seen him around lately, that never gave a serious response. All he contributed was humour.

I am singling out this quote from an individual post only as a referential frame to another thought I'd like to add.

From a number of responses I gather many people equate humour with jokes.

That's not what I meant.
(I am not sure the OP meant it, either.)

Humour is a WAY of expression, a MODE - not the contents.
It can even be mutually exclusive (I am sure we have all experienced that at some point - painfully... )
For example, I can't envisage a life - MY life - without humour.
And yet, I detest jokes. I loathe joke-telling. I flee joke-tellers... You get the point.
(It doesn't mean that I haven't heard - or told - good jokes. But those were exceptions.
And I am weird anyway, so let's leave it at that... )

Anyway, humour and seriousness of discussion are not at all mutually exclusive.
That's all I wanted to say.






[edit on 14-10-2008 by Vanitas]

reply to post by fox_3000au


Admit it: you bumped the "tell me a joke" thread just to get that screenshot... right?

Originally posted by Szticks

Originally posted by Phage

One of the strongest markers of intelligence is a strong sense of humor

Is it really? I thought that was more attributed to EQ rather than IQ as it's dealing more with an emotionl response to stimuli rather than a logical assesment. I could be wrong of course.

Yes, it is. Really.

Most of the wittiest quips I've heard came from people whose empathy was ZERO or thereabouts. And I am not implying they were cruel; I don't find cruelty funny. (Irreverence... ah, that's another thing. ;-))

It's a totally reason-based thing - a verbal pleasure.

P.S. The so-called "EQ" is nothing but a marketing ploy for the author who wrote the first book on it (and plugged it on "Oprah" - of course). Because I doubt they would sell as many copies if they had called the subject of their research with its plain old name: empathy.





[edit on 14-10-2008 by Vanitas]

Is there room for humour here?

If not, I think there should be.

I was standing in line at the gas station when a forum mod walked in and stood behind me. He was a little twitchy and kept saying, "I'm a teepee, I'm a wigwam, I'm a teepee, I'm a wigwam."

I said relax man, you're two tents!

Badump bump!

Oh, oh, oh, oh....

I have another one....



HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..hahaha...ha...ha...ha*sigh*

sorry....carry on....

Fox.

In my (admittedly limited) time on ATS, I have not seen a meaningful one line post receive a warning or censure.

It's the " Yeah you're right," "I agree," "Geez what a waste of time," "FAKE!," responses that are moderated - in other words, the responses that do not contribute anything to the content of the thread.

reply to post by Heike


Neither have I and never will I..

Originally posted by mlmijyd
No. No humour is allowed by the extremely anal moderators (or some of them). Not only are humorous replies often a rapid with insight and sarcasm but invariably they are of the one liner variety. But, our anal moderators fail to realise this and penalise and chastise those that give such replies. Exercising their petty power control, how crap is that!

Are you upset about something? Don't hold it in.

I had a post pulled from a thread that addressed the "Pentagram in Obamas back hair."
I believe my post consisted of "Ha-ha. Ha-ha-hahahaha" so the off topic reasoning for pulling my post might have been ok.
During subsequent u2u the same moderator informed me that coffee had squirted from his nose when he saw that thread title.
I assert that one nose squirting mod on ATS has sense of humor. I have no proof of course so I guess we'll have to call it a rumor.

Not really, I have been banned for my humor.

In the GFL thread, i posted this on 15 october i was banned instantly.

Originally posted by Phage
One of the strongest markers of intelligence is a strong sense of humor but I see a lot of posts that I consider funny that no one else seems to. Is it just me?

As you pointed out earlier in your example, you were able to resist the temptation. Perhaps others do the same?

fyi... I find the quote above funny!

While the self- and peer-ratings of sense of humor and one of the humor creativity tests loaded on the same factor, the other markers were distributed over two further factors which were primarily marked by intelligence and neuroticism, clearly suggesting that measures of sense of humor are not unidimensional. Eysenck commented on the results as follows: Clearly the results cannot be regarded as in any sense final; different sets of tests, different populations, different culture patterns might easily produce results differing widely from those reported. Nevertheless, it is only through comparisons of different experiments, carried out in different conditions, that we can learn about the influence of those aspects of the experimental situation over which we have no control. At the very least, this research would seem to have confirmed the suspicion expressed by many writers that the concept of 'sense of humour' is not a unitary one, but that we are dealing rather with a multitude of independent aspects which must be quantified and studied separately. This research marks the beginning of a taxonomic study of the position of these various aspects within the total personality space (Eysenck 1952: 275).

source: Sense of humor: A new look at an old concept

Bravo Phage,.I think ,for what it's worth,. humor should by all means be allowed in threads,. all to often topics are serious and dry.
Though some topics are posted to be this way, point
As Greeneyedleo pointed out, blend in your humor with a related post and your not breaking rules..