Side note: what's going on HN lately with all this pun/troll/meme nonsense? Please leave that stuff on reddit.

Counter-point: I haven't seen any uptick in such comments. (Also note that meta comments comparing HN to Reddit generally garner downvotes, for good reason, as they too don't contribute meaningfully to discussion)

Side note: what's going on with people believing reddit has some monopoly on puns/trolls/memes and that hacker-types (like the folks who presumably frequent Hacker News) would never find them amusing?

I visit HN because it provides more or less serious and intellectually-stimulating conversation with a diverse group of people that have diverse (and sometimes opposing) viewpoints. It's not that funny stuff isn't amusing, it's that it's counter to what HN might be trying to achieve.

> it's that it's counter to what HN might be trying to achieve.

If HN is trying to achieve a soulless takes-itself-way-too-seriously environment, then I'd agree with you. Hopefully that's not the case (but probably is, per the observations I've accumulated over the years of hanging around here).

> intellectually-stimulating conversation

Humor can be intellectually-stimulating, even in the form of clever puns. Whether or not the pun in question was clever (or at least sufficiently-clever to be amusing) is a different question.

> diverse group of people that have diverse (and sometimes opposing) viewpoints.

Humor happens to be an excellent way to both convey and consume those viewpoints, especially in a way that's actually conducive to all parties actually coming away with a better understanding of one another.

I'll bite the bullet and give my opinion without any hedging. If someone's comment consists of just a pun, or other low effort content that doesn't lead to meaningful dialogue, I'm downvoting them.

It's a housekeeping/ broken windows thing, puns and off topic one liners that exist to solicit some type of thoughtless reaction in the reader, are the first signs of a forum in decline.

A discussion of how this type of event could affect other large MMO developers, such as CCP, could be relevant. There's a large Chinese playerbase in EVE Online.

> It's not that funny stuff isn't amusing, it's that it's counter to what HN might be trying to achieve.

So, keep it serious. No Having fun. Gotchya.

You can have fun, but your joke has to be funny and original. Edit: Maybe just funny.