As we discussed before in the Newsletter, our COMmunity will provide new guidelines as well as providing a map for the future of the community. Now, the guidelines would have some key differences to the previous one, however, it will not be a long one.
The rules of the community will remain the same, however, those don't matter unless posts in this community also meet the guidelines in this post as well.
The first of the guidelines actually relates to both members of the community as well as the people running it. As stated in the newsletter, we need posts in the community to be similar to sets performed at comedy clubs. To get an idea of what we're talking about, here's an example below:
Obviously, not everything that works in comedy clubs sets on the mic works in written form and vice-versa. However, it's important to distinguish the one key similarity that we are trying to see here in the form of set-ups and punchlines through the set or, in the case here, the written post.
Posts here will be judged not in the overall message or event, but on a paragraph-to-paragraph basis. What this means is that not only your overall post would need to have a punchline in it, but actually every paragraph. Clearly, we're not overlooking the need to set up the topic you aim to write about, however, it does mean that the post would need to include jokes and punchlines at a certain point, as early as possible, and then carry on to have those jokes and punchlines throughout.
Simply put, think of jokes and punchlines as water on your paragraphs and we simply don't want dry paragraphs.
It's very important to understand the difference between humour in general and comedy and why we want to see the latter not the first.
All comedy posts are humourous but not the other way around, comedy is more consistent. Comedy is basically everything you say/write aims at getting laughter, everything else is secondary. Check out the example below
As you can see in the example above, the dentist kept messing up. That's comedy, it's where the situation evolves in a comedic light. If the scene had gone on normally after one mistake by the dentist, it would be humourous, yes, but the fact that the situation evolved as it did with each action aiming at getting laughter is what makes it comedy.
Likewise in comedy posts, if you are talking about a date where you try to impress the girl and your trousers tear as you sit, you have achieved humour, however, if you don't carry on with the story with the goal of getting a laugh talking about the remaining of the date, then as far as you comedy is concerned, your post might as well be only one sentence "I went on a date and my trousers were torn".
If the humour and funny aspects in your entire post can be summed up in a few sentences, or even worse, only one, then your post simply isn't comedy. Comedy is achieved through mini-comments throughout the post, which leads me to the next point.
How many posts created here had short comments about the event talked about and those comments were funny? That's simply how you need to treat your own posts, keep commenting on the event, and give your perspective on the events you went through. Why is the event funny? You can expand with imagined scenarios of how things would have gone worse in a funny way.
A humorous story can become a comedic one only when you add your own funny comments to it. An event can be humourous by default, but it takes your active attempts and comments in order to make it comedy. That's important because of the next point.
It's very important to know that posts from this point on won't be judged based on whether the story itself is humorous. If you went to the beach and a stingray stung you in the butt then yes that is humourous, however, it's what you do with that story in terms of comedy techniques is how the post will be judged. Throwing those stories as they will lead to them getting ignored or, in most cases as we're trying to be strict, muted.
You don't need to post here every day or even every week. You only need to post here whenever you have a post that matches the vibe of a comedy set performed by a stand-up comedian.
What this means is that you would need to add comedic twists throughout your post, that's a process that should be respected. You would need to be at a certain level that only a few people in the world operate on to be able to make a comedy post in one sitting. There's no room for "good enough" or "I guess it works", comedy doesn't work that way. Your post either followed the steps necessary to make it a comedy or it didn't.
Posts that don't follow the process of making comedy posts won't be considered and will most likely be muted if they persist after a warning.
Our standards for lazy posts are actually more strict than other communities, it's not just about word count, although it should be made clear that anything less than 600 words won't be accepted unless it's a compilation or a parody list. But, as far as stories go, they simply won't be accepted.
This doesn't you should just stretch your post, but rather apply comedy techniques to it to make it funnier. As said before, any sentence or paragraph added needs to have the aim of making people laugh. If your story is about going to the market with a friend and having lunch there, there's no need to describe the food, type of day, temperature, your clothes, means of transportation, the market, the place you ate, or the economical outcomes of your inspiration meals unless it is to get laughter.
Laziness here doesn't mean word count and a full stop, it might actually mean the more you write empty sentences, the lazier the post is. We don't have a need for a thousand words posts if they're written without the point of getting laughter.
So don't think of the word count threshold as a huge indicator of the post's laziness, it's not our main indicator.
This is the final point of this guidelines post.
Always make sure to look for different techniques to make your post more comedic, it doesn't mean adding more events necessarily, but just using those techniques to make the existing event more comedic. Comedy is filled with tools that could make a post funnier, make sure to use them.
This is also why we're starting the Comedy School Initiative. It is a series of posts that will be shared with our own members exploring the comedy tools and basic comedic foundations that could help our members improve their posts and make them more comical.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
This revamp is going to be a journey, no one will hold it against you if it is a journey you're not interested in pursuing. However, to those who are joining us, we promise you that the end of this journey will be something special.
