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Humour in a text-only medium is a difficult business - especially if it comes mixed in serious discussion. People can take the comedian at face value and think he's a monster, or simply not get the joke. Some posters have resorted to using <humour> tags and smilies to flag jokes to the easily offended,
but a joke is often less funny if it is signposted in this way. The solution - an extension to HTML allows "This is a joke" notices, or even lengthly explanations for those who are humour deprived or slow on the uptake to be embedded into text. In normal viewing, these are completely invisible and do not interfere with the flow of text. However, if you feel like firing off an angry email at that guy who indirectly insulted your mother's favourite hat, or simply want to see if you missed anything, you can click a button on your browser and the author's stated intent will be displayed. Also works for footnotes, spoilers, etc.
http://www.halfbake...al/help.html#tongue
[jutta, Jul 23 2007]
I don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner
Bumper_20Sticker_20Internal_20Logic
There's a related idea right across the way [normzone, Jul 24 2007]
[link]
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I thought it was a terrible idea until I
realized that these tags will not
normally be activated. Now I just think
it is a bad idea. |
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It's bad because if lots of people really
don't get the joke, then it's quite likely
that it wasn't a funny or well-calculated
joke. The writer should bear the brunt
in such cases - it's part of their job. |
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It's bad because if someone is trying to
write comedy, they don't need the
distraction of having to explain their
jokes, or even thinking about how to
explain them. Putting an imaginary
humourless person on your shoulder is
not the way to be inspired. |
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It's bad because, if someone is offended
by misunderstanding a gag that is, in
fact, funny or tongue-in-cheek,
then maybe that person *ought* to get
a little riled, bang off an angry letter or
two, and get straightened out. |
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It's bad because if someone just doesn't
get the point of a gag that is, in fact,
funny, then explaining it is just going to
make things more painful all round. |
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Sorry, I can see that this is a well-meant
idea, but I just think it's bad. |
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Am I the only one who can see that this idea was meant as a joke? |
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[Phundug] quite possibly. In which case
see para.2 of the foregoing anno. |
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Well, they already do this for television (cue the canned laughter to let you know that that line was funny). |
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How about recorded laughter that briefly plays a predetermined amount of time after the reader has opened the file? [-] |
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Closer, but too simple. There needs to be an eyeball tracking mechanism that cues the laugh track when the appropriate line is read. |
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but think of the layers of comedic value that would be lost. Example: |
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person 1 says something with subtle wit
person 2 pretends to miss the humour in remark and amplifies the wit of person 1 by agreeing to an absurd notion
person 3 doesn't get the joke and fires off an outraged, poorly thought-out and poorly spelt post.
etc |
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Back in the seventies I worked for a printing company run by a Jewish Republican. A guy came in wanting a bumper sticker printed up that said, “McGovern is one thousand percent behind Israel.” He wouldn’t take the job until I explained the joke. (Even though I figured, if you had to explain it to people, it wouldn't work.) |
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You could just put comments in the html. <!-- humor -->You big idiot!<!-- /humor --> |
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Sarcasm gets a full tag? Did I say that? If I did, I am just going to have to pull an Alberto on the fact. |
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... rather than having to write span.humour { color: red; }, a savings of five letters! |
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