boy, you HN people have absolutely NO sense of humor!!!

I for one welcome our new humorless hackerlords.

Sure, it's humorous, but unsophisticated and shows little effort. I didn't downmod you, by the way, but I didn't find it funny.

I for one don't welcome them. I thought the comment was reasonably amusing -- a Slashdot-esque quip here and there surely does no real harm -- but even if it were deemed unfunny, is -17 really appropriate? Would not a 0 suffice?

My /. joke was written in jest. I read funny comments here now and then, but you have to admit that template jokes get old really fast, and the lack of thought involved adds a displeasing element to them.

I do agree that -17 is unnecessary though, and I don't understand why it happens.