One should always avoid anything that can result in being labelled “troll” because all it takes is for TPTB to agree that the label is warranted.
milroyj did the same thing and look what happened to him. 
Puuuuu-leeeeeeeeeeeze! Don’t remind me! I saw the whole thing when it happened and the flashbacks are awful. :eek:
Is it me, or has a thread of snappy one-liners become hijacked into one about whether or not cites are required in the Pit?
Oh, yeah…Shut up, DropZone!
As someone who’s guilty of doing a lot of drop-in gags in all forums, I have to concede that we “comedians” sometimes aren’t half as funny as the unintentional ones.
THE STRAIGHT DOPE
Fighting Ignorance Since 1973
(It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought)
The twin missions of the SDMB are fighting ignorance and making wisecracks.
My cite is located at the top of the home page and helpfully reproduced above. (Now that’s a cite!)
Also see the pit thread, Proposed Straight Dope Guidelines, from April 5, 2002. (No, I can’t get the search engine to work either).
Seriously, jokes are part and parcel of the SDMB.
Sounds like fun. :rolleyes:
These are not great examples, but I thought they were timely.
Really, killing a dog isn’t funny. :mad: 
Child molestation is even less funny.
Then, there’s:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6278568#post6278568
which I have to admit wasn’t a great question by any means, but the Op seems to have been serious.
Hmmm… it’s an IMHO thread. I’d say that posting a joke to an IMHO thread is, itself, an expression of an opinion. Kinda iffy, though. If it had been a GD thread, I’d probably agree with you, as there is some room for interesting debate there, but considering the forum, I don’t think the jokes were out of line.
And, yeah, I thought some of them were funny. I got a dark sense of humor. If that kind of joke bugs you that much, stay out of the Bob Sagat thread that’s going in Cafe Society right now. It’s got the funniest child molestation joke I’ve ever heard in it.
I only see two jokes in that thread, neither directly related to each other, and one posted after a serious answer had been proposed, which I believe is explicitly allowed in GQ. Hardly seems to be a hijack which prevented an earnest debate. Your original complaint was that perfectly good threads were being ruined by jokes, right? Not that otherwise serious threads are occasionally peppered by a couple one liners? If you’re honestly complaining about the latter, I might have to go back to insulting you.
DrDeth just doesn’t get it. A group of people were having a discussion as to how the US legal system works when dealing with an entire class of people when guess who tried to hijack it?
I asked for cites. In GD. What’s wrong with that?
Well, the “Batman v. Superman” line came perilously close to a joke…
Because, you don’t care about answers. In your pit thread, I gave you a cite, and you didn’t say thanks. Instead, you expressed surprise.
It was an attempted hijack of a hypothetical situation, then you went to the the Pit to complain about the thread’s existance, even though the thread in question already had at least one Mod post to it. You are not the arbitrator of what belongs where, nor are you the arbitrator of when a cite is required. In short: you just don’t get it. Hopefully a Mod or Admin will be along to hit you with a cluestick.
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Wisecracks are a good thing; they are consistent with the board’s mission.
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Jokes that derail good questions are a bad thing, as they hurt the fight against ignorance.
3.a. Methinks that #2 is rare. IIRC, even Dr. Deth conceded that #2 was rarer than he thought. Actually, I can’t think of a single example.
3.b. (Poorly formed questions, OTOH, may not be answered and may be made fun of, on occasion.)
- Jokes that are distracting may be more common. But I don’t think they are a bad thing.
I wouldn’t mind participating in a more serious board. Somewhere else. But I’d be really bummed if wisecracks were curbed here. Luckily, this doesn’t seem very likely.