"near-zero-g"

Why would it be "zero-g" you're not in orbit?

You are moving from ground (1g) to geostationary orbit at zero. It will be a slow progression from one to the other (with a very slight lateral acceleration) but imho once below .5g anyone who is going to get air/sea/space sick wont see much difference.

Ah good point - I was just thinking about lower down.

Is humor against HN rules? I regularly see such posts being downvoted and it doesn't make sense to me.

Most humor can be categorized as "insubstantive comments" and those are discouraged.

It is possible to crack a joke here and get it upvoted, but it's hard to pull it off. I even once had a joke upvoted by quite a lot,* like 50 points or something, but most jokes are downvoted not because humor is forbidden, but because insubstantive comments are discouraged.

Some humor is downvoted for being uncivil because a lot of humor is basically poking fun at people or mocking them. A lot of humor is not nice at all. HN tries to meet a very high bar for civility.

* Under my old handle and it hit 59 points:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14996229

I posted a joke a couple of days ago about "the Xzibit pattern" which ended up at 10 points, but it fluctuated a lot so it probably got something like 40 up 30 down. Would be interesting to see the breakdown of votes on HN.

I'm just glad you can't see the # of votes here for other comments. Helps prevent bandwagonning, though that still happens for downvotes once the css kicks in.

Well said. That's about as succinct a sum-up as I've heard. This might actually belong in the FAQ as it might save some folks a bit of confusing cultural acclimation upon arriving at HN from parts distant such as reddit or slashdot (is that still a thing?).

At any rate, way better than "harumph! HN hates fun!"

But if you note my "joke" actually illustrated a point of physics about which at least one person was confused: the expected g-forces. So it wasnt insubstantive, certainly not as insubstantive as the parent comment about elevator music.

Can I ask why you retired your previous handle?

The short version is that I made the leaderboard and it looks like a feminist handle. There's more factors involved, but that's the crux of it.

No, it’s not against the rules, but downvotes aren’t there to enforce the rules.

It’s just a culture thing. HN tends to be more news and factually focused than reddit/Twitter/etc. People here just prefer to stay on topic, especially since humor is very different between people and can be very hit or miss.

yup, coming here and the top comment actually being something insightful or some point worthy of discussion instead of some sarcastic comment or joke like elsewhere is what makes this place.

The use if my joke is evident in the immediate reply, the confusion over g forces. There is no reason an informative comment cannot also be funny.