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A method for presenting sarcasm in a forum environment

Mavimao

Mavimao

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 16, 2005
857
15
Lyon, France
So we've all witnessed or even got caught up in miniature tiffs because one person said something sarcastically and the other person took them seriously.

In any case, I would like to suggest the following method that I saw on another forum to help clear up this subtle linguistic anomaly: all sarcastic sentences are to be written in purple. For example:

"People wonder why the Xserve was discontinued? Maybe it was all those ginormous sales?

If this were to catch on, maybe there could be a sarcasm button added to the add reply window?

Thoughts?
 
Is there a color for calling someone out or calling them a turd and going right to edge of offensive but clearly beyond plain sarcasm.

Oh wait, we're not suppose to do that.
 
Not a great idea. It would lead to color codes for every type of comment, making the forum look like Walt Disney threw up in here:

Red: ranting/angry posts
Green: buying/selling posts
Blue: fanboy posts
Yellow: "I'm afraid I have a virus" posts
Purple: sarcastic posts
Brown: BS posts (natural choice!)
Gray: sad posts ("dropped my MBP")
etc., etc., etc.

;):D:eek::(:):confused::eek::mad::rolleyes::cool::p:apple:
 
I'd rather be having the occasional "miniature tiff" than be ploddingly obvious. Sarcasm - and satire - are better if the reader has to do a double-take to check if they are in fact serious.
 
I think we should mark comments if they are NOT sarcastic.:rolleyes: I assume sarcastic tones and adjust my perception accordingly; I have found that approach to work extremely well for me here.
 
What an awesome idea

Maybe different fonts for different moods. The possibilities are endless.
 
Never make a rule you can not enforce, never make a rule you will not enforce, and never make a rule that will make you look like a fool if you do enforce it.
Click to expand...


Widely applicable.
 
Blue Velvet said:
Widely applicable.
Click to expand...

Very true

I learned those lessons dealing with students, faculty and parents as a school administrator years ago

Also, learn to pick your battles and live to fight another day
Know what you are willing to fuss over
Know what you are willing to fight over
And know what you are willing to die for

As far as sarcasm goes, I think people take the Forums far too seriously
Adding additional levels of nuance is unnecessary in my opinion
Life's tough, get a helmet
 
Perhaps we should enable emoji?

emoji_poop_thumbs_up.png
 
Mavimao said:
So we've all witnessed or even got caught up in miniature tiffs because one person said something sarcastically and the other person took them seriously.

In any case, I would like to suggest the following method that I saw on another forum to help clear up this subtle linguistic anomaly: all sarcastic sentences are to be written in purple. For example:

"People wonder why the Xserve was discontinued? Maybe it was all those ginormous sales?

If this were to catch on, maybe there could be a sarcasm button added to the add reply window?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Great idea.

It would take all the fun out of being obnoxious.
 
Blue Velvet said:
Widely applicable.
Never make a rule you can not enforce, never make a rule you will not enforce, and never make a rule that will make you look like a fool if you do enforce it.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

And in this case, it seems to fit all three of these conditions.

I don't think it would be successful in trying to adopt some sort of color code to identify sarcasm.

While I don't disagree with the OP, its quite easy to misinterpret a sarcastic post as a sincere post and thus start a tiff. I can't see a poster purposely making it purple, nor can I see a mod enforcing this rule (or manually coloring sentences).
 
I have seen </sarcasm> before and I think that works best if you feel you need to denote that sarcasm is being used. In that way, nobody has to be "in-the-know" about the purple rule. Besides, people who can't figure out sarcasm is being used, probably won't be able to figure out the purple rule either.
 
Arran said:
Colorblind folks would be all :confused:
Click to expand...
Definitely!

Here's how I see the colors posted by GGJstudios:

Red: black or red or brown
Green: green or brown
Blue: blue or purple
Yellow: green or yellow, but mostly invisible
Purple: blue or purple
Brown: green or brown or red
Gray: gray or pink
 
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