Neat, but I have it somehow in fairly recent memory [citation needed] that any form of humour is discouraged not only on Wikipedia but almost certainly on The Signpost. Wikimedians according to [names redacted], are expected to be po-faced, irritable, and cantankerous at all times of the year, and never, never dare to be friendly and use first names. In fact if our language were French or German we would all be saying vous and Sie or risk a block or a ban. Happy holidays. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:06, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm guessing you're referring to Getting serious about humour, which I thought was a pretty funny headline given the circumstances! I'm definitely not giving up on humor in The Signpost, but it's a tough fight on 2 fronts. Comedic talent seems to be fairly rare among Wikipedians, or perhaps those who have it don't want to risk putting their heads above the trench. From the practical point of view, I don't think The Signpost should risk losing large parts of our readership by publishing jokes that seem aimed at demographic groups. Yes, people can be real sensitive about this type of thing. I admit that I can be grumpy at times, especially about humor! I thank thee for the comment. Smallbones(smalltalk)05:05, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was, and I could never understand the furore, as I explained to SMcCandlish recently. The cultural dichotomies, Smallbones, between the different enthnies and genders of EN1L users make humour a very dangerous exploit on en.Wiki. There are also the people who deliberately analyse every word in the hope of claiming they have been insulted - it can even get you blocked, banned, or even desysoped ;)
That said, we Brits are very good at something most other cultures aren't: laughing at ourselves, especially at our sexual and racial stereotypes, and by those of us (like me) who were brought up in the austerity of the postwar years, and the effects of decolonisation of the British Empire throughout the 50s and 60s. That's why British sitcom is so hugely successful (in Britain) and why the campest of comedians really are gay (mind the gap) and the darkest humourists are not wearing blackface.
Sadly due to the fake modesty of modern political correctness many of the best loved sitcoms would not be made today and a chunk of our best humour - including the likes of Monty Python and Blackadder and ever earlier, Curry and Chips, Love Thy Neighbour, and Rising Damp - is now missing from our culture. Even the famous British music hall and working men's club jokes about 'An Irishman, an Englishman, and a Scotsman' would be disallowed today - in public at least. It used to be written on the back of a matchbox that 'Laughter is the best medicine', but there is hardly any use for matches nowadays and the younger generations that are trailing along behind me will probably succeed in getting all forms of humour made illegal by the middle of the century. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:01, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And my essay in question wasn't about gender anyway, it was about unreasonable demands to do odd grammar/style things for aggrandizement reasons (commercial, religious, egotistical, etc.). I've had to go over this so many times, I put up a FAQ about it at User:SMcCandlish/TG-NB. I was still arguably in the wrong for writing something that was easy to misinterpret as being about gender, and that's the rub here. It's difficult if not impossible (especially in these "cancel culture" times) to write any humor piece that someone somewhere cannot think of a reason to take offense at, whether their interpretation is even correct or not. So, SP writers are risking their wiki-lives when they go there. Maybe risking more than that. The SP humor editor who ran my essay in SP ended up getting harassed offline at work about it, and felt compelled to resign a position at a university. And the harasser was never punished or even admonished for it (should probably have been sitebanned), though is now incidentally topic-banned from the general subject for an overall battlegrounding pattern on gender and sexuality subjects. What it comes down to is this: if you write a humor piece and it offends someone, it will not matter what the intent of it was, it will only matter whether those taking offense and their viewpoint are more popular than you and than the straw man misinterpretation of your viewpoint being advanced by those people. If they and theirs are the more popular, then you will have no recourse at all. ANI, AN, AE, ArbCom, etc. will not do anything to restrain harassment, verbal attacks, editwar hounding, and more against you. So, yeah, I would never try to do a humor piece in SP again. I would rather stab myself in the eyeballs. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:27, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I really hadn't intended to revisit this. The wound is still too raw - and if it's still too raw for me, it must be very painful for others. Still, I think it should be obvious that the following, from Getting serious ... is the best policy for The Signpost
"We pledge that we will never attack or mock any group whose members include those who do not have a choice about their membership in the group. Groups covered by this pledge include, but are not limited to, those based on race, nationality, sex, gender, age, disability, social or economic status, veteran status, body type, or religion.
Is it even possible to write humor that doesn't ever mock these groups? Of course it is!"
Wikipedia is a multiethnic, multiconfessional, multi-gender community and, for the sake of everybody involved, the above policy will minimize conflicts.
I did not blame anybody for starting the confrontation, and it still would not be a good idea to try to do that. But some of the things said here make a lot of sense now. Good humor is really hard, good humor in a multi-multi context is really, really hard. But IMHO it is worth the all trouble when humor succeeds. Smallbones(smalltalk)20:46, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, people can be real sensitive about this type of thing - indeed, @Smallbones and SMcCandlish:, and I would emphasise once again that there is an unhealthy large number of users - including superior elected ones - who deliberately parse every sentence typed on Wikipedia in the hope they can detect and identify something they claim to be insulting and take you to ANI or Arbcom for. In today's climate, wow, how glad I am that I'm no longer an E-in-C of this publication - just far too dangerous! Happy New Year 😋 Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:52, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And just the fact that this is couched in terms of "attack or mock any group whose members include ...", which is emphatically not what my material did, proves my point and Kudpung's. The question isn't really "Is it even possible to write humor that doesn't ever mock these groups?" Rather: "Is it feasible to consistently write humor that cannot ever be bent by anyone to seem to mean something it did not say, then used to attack, character-smear, and even off-site harass the author?" If there's even the faintest whiff of doubt, then one is foolish to decide to be a humor writer for SP. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 06:18, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Or, SMcCandlish, even sharing a totally harmless witticism with a friend on his or her talk page for fear that a non-involved, mean spirited talk page stalker will get the wrong end of the stick and drag you by the scruff of your neck to the meanest of arbitrators (it's happened). Not to mention the non-humourous and harmless friendly use of a user's first name. I once held myself - as a linguist - in check from commenting on Polari in connection with the stereotypical characters Julian and Sandy for fear of reprisals[1]. Doing almost anything on Wikipedia these days other than minding one's own business and editing a safe, non controversial scientific topic is is nearly as hazardous as walking bare foot across red hot ploughshares or running for adminship. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:58, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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