Too meta for me (DBO)

by Claude Errera , Wednesday, June 01, 2016, 06:29 (3117 days ago) @ Funkmon

I think that's a reasonable action, but I'm sorry I've caused it. My intent was not to talk about that joke, or indeed those kinds of jokes in general, but of all jokes deemed "never funny" because of the subject. I thought this joke was inappropriate here, which is the reason I didn't post in the thread, despite, as you know, loving gags, loving to laugh, and often jumping on joke threads.

When I saw the sentence that said it wasn't funny because of the subject, I tried to talk about how I don't think that's a good way to look at jokes that offend people, and I wanted to talk about that phenomenon. Though I did talk about that joke, what my post was about was jokes in general.

I'm sorry I made you type that sentence. I didn't mean to talk about the nature or philosophy of jokes on that subject, but of jokes in general. Because it makes me uncomfortable, I pretty much don't even type the subject word. If you, or any of the admins, perceived my post to be an argument for those types of jokes, then I've completely misrepresented myself and what I wanted to talk about. If this is the case, as a favour to me and for the forum, please delete the post for me. I don't want anyone to think I'm a supporter of that stuff. I just tried to talk about comedy; I guess I failed.

I should have stepped in earlier; it looked like it was shutting ITSELF down. someotherguy's posts on the subject were polite, and respectful, but pretty clear - and i thought they'd stop the conversation by themselves. His point about not being able to know your whole audience on a forum is pretty critical; if there's a joke that's being shared here, and someone comes along and says "hey, that offends me", the correct response (as long as they're not trolling) is "sorry, I'll stop", not "hey, this is why all jokes can be funny in some circumstances."

I stepped in because NOT stepping in would have suggested that the discussion, after someone has (really politely) asked folks to stop, is acceptable here. It is ABSOLUTELY acceptable in other places; I've even started that discussion myself, in the past. But here... well, it's a gaming forum, and it's (hopefully) a relatively welcoming place. I understand that shutting down conversation can lead to exactly the opposite... but HAVING that conversation, after someone has expressed unhappiness, will certainly alienate some people, and I think making some subjects off-limits is a pretty low-budget way of minimizing some kinds of strife. (HBO had an explicit no-politics rule. That doesn't exist here, and once or twice I've regretted that... but in-bad-taste humor seems like a relatively painless subject to ban (well, the parts of it that people complain about).)

I didn't see your post as an argument for rape jokes. I just felt that not commenting on your post was implicit approval of a discussion that should have stopped when someotherguy asked that it be stopped. (If you want to start up a thread about jokes, and how we interact with them... go for it. Just don't tie it to this thread. :) )