Hey funny community let's organize.
We are almost three weeks into this crazy experiment to see if we can grow the funny community here on steemit. So far, I am pretty happy with the results. I think the number and quality of funny posts have increased. In addition, we now have ways to find some humorous posts. It's a slow process but at least it is a start.
But we could do better.
Much better.
How?
First, my apologies to @Trafalgar. That guy was naturally building up the punchline tag and then I came in here like a bull in a china shop and started stepping on everything. I may be a well intentioned bull, but I'm a bull nonetheless less. So let's make sure that we fix my mistake and only use the "punchline" tag for short funny posts.
Oh look at this delightful little humorous community.
The "punchline" tag is "meant to be for very short, impactful one liners and/or memes". So let's use it for that.
Here are the goals of the initiative:
We want to increase the number, quality and types of comedic posts on steemit.
How can we do that?
Let's respect the punchline tag and keep those very short quick laughs. That one is going well, let's keep building it. If you see someone mis-using the tag, make a respectful suggestion to change it. I don't think we need to start flagging anyone yet.
Let's figure out what types of other humorous content we want to encourage and come up with tags for those.
So far I can think of stand-up (both original and links), sketches, songs, and stories/longer jokes.
Are there other types we want to encourage?
What tags can we use?
Stand-up can just be "stand-up" (Open to suggestions)
Sketches can be "sketch" (Open to suggestions)
What about stories/longer jokes like @meesterboom, @theregularguy, and @weirdnews produce? What tag would those fall under? We can't use "stories" because that would get mixed up with fiction.
3.All of us need to hunt for funny material and link it in the daily "What's so funny?" post. We have a very strong and funny base now. The next step is to find more talent. Or perhaps recruit some of your own funny friends here and link their posts for all of us to see. I will keep rewarding the comments with links to other funny posts.
4.I'd like to see people put together a video of the funny steemians already here. Can we pull that off?
THIS IS ALL GREAT!
I think you should just start elbowing all the witnesses now.. it's working, but we only have 100 views?
The current Steemit model does not scale, unless you poke people for support. It will get better but right now, we need to message sponsors..
You are absolutely right.
I sent you a message a few days ago on that chat you told me about.
How about using the tag 'laughingstock'.
We have our first nominations for a name for longer humorous posts. Any others?
How about "crackmyribs"
How about for longer humor we go with "funny-story".
Kind of like a take on "Funny story bro. but it could have used more dragons."
Another nomination "funny-story"
To sum up what I am reading:
#punchline for very quick laughs.
#stand-up for performance.
And another tag (I do like #laughingstock) for written longer material.
To be clear, I will be using #funny #humor #jokes #pun #rant #satire and anything else I feel is appropriate for my posts, but we can come together as a group and police these first three tags.
Is there anything I got wrong?
That is the idea. But nothing set yet.
Thank you! This is very helpful. Maybe we could use "humor" or "comedy" for longer stuff? Or we could get really specific and use like "comedic-story" to make us sound weirder than we actually are.
I have a question though, what tags should I use for a short story? like maybe a Gif with 5 or 6 lines? I usually use the "punchline" tag for everything just to get attention, but I could see how that would be annoying for people who just want to see really short stuff, so I'll stop. Thank you @punchline and thank you @surfyogi!
I apologize for a scary long comment.
If you are worried about me seeing it, you are one of the 28 people I follow so I won't miss your posts no matter what you tag them. I am just trying to think of ways to work more people into the fold.
Ok thanks I really appreciate that. I get ya.
These kind of scary long comments have to stop
;O)
I know! I was even about to add the #punchline to it but they don't let you add tags to comments ;-) lol
Hehe, they do! Just bang the hash sign in front and you are laughing
#checkmatags
:O)
@improv has a pun contest going - I suspect it's the longest running pun contest in the history of humanity.
I think they use the #pun tag.
Cool. thanks for the heads up.
A big thanks to @surfyogi indeed! It is good to encourage the funny community. Maybe longer ones could just be #humor?
I will try and entice some funny people I know on! Great initiative!
I am worried generic tags will get lost in a sea of complete shit. We need something unique that we can encourage funny people to use. Kind of an unofficial way to create a community without communities.
You are absolutely right, scanning through the comments I quite like laughingstock. Or lickmylaughs, oh no wait, thats me :OD
The funny tag is important simply because, in a sense, Steemit is a newspaper. Newspapers have the funny pages. Sure, our stuff here doesn't look like comics but that's only because we have full control over what we publish and we don't have censors stunting our creative freedom.
Some people don't want their work in the funny pages but use the funny tag just because one tiny little piece of their photographic journey into the woods that day was slightly humorous. That should probably stop. If the full intention of the entire piece is not meant to be funny, they should not be using the funny tag. We don't need to switch. More awareness needs to be created. Funny tag is for funny pages.
FUNNY tag, maybe another tag describing the form (satire, off-color, surreal, sketch, comedy, impov, this list is very long, you get the idea, etc).
Anyway. Thanks for all you do. Thanks @surfyogi. I'll continue to focus on my stuff and chime in when I can to help.
I agree whole heartedly. However the reality is that there are 61,000 active users a day now. It i going to be really hard to educate that many people on the proper use of a tag. But I still think the "funny" tag should be used for the exact reasons you stated.
From a logistical standpoint of trying to find certain types of posts, I was thinking that one of the other 4 tags on a post could be something unique so that people searching for a certain type of humor could find it.
Also, if we pick something unique like "laughingstock" as @beentherdonethat suggested then we could use it as a way to help filter through the thousands of posts. The base group we are building could personally tell people to use that tag. It wouldn't be "invite only" or anything but If you stumbled upon a funny story that was simply tagged "funny" you could drop a link to it but you could also say "This is a really funny post. There is a community of comedians who patrol the tag 'laughingstock'. Maybe you should add that tag so that group can see it."
Or if you invite someone who you know is funny, you could tell them to use "laughingstock" for long posts and "punchline" for short.
I have to believe there is more funny content out there. It is just really hard to find in the sea of "funny".
I am not saying we have settled on "laughingstock". It is a good suggestion that I am using for the example. If someone has a better idea share it.
Something unique. You're right. A comedy club has a name above the door that leads inside. Combining both your words and mine:
#funnypages
Maybe a hyphenated #funny-pages, I don't know. Work in progress. It's not a short funny, it's an entire page.
It's also a play on words. You want to be paged or notified.
Good analogy. that is precisely where I was going with this.
I edited in more words to that comment. Not sure if you noticed. Laughingstock is an interesting suggestion but I take my comedy seriously and laughingstock is usually describing something in a negative light.
helpful information, thanks for post
I became the first to post a meme with such a tag