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In a thread about an important realization or discovery, post a joke.
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A dad pun or a clever quip. Any joke will do.
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Use bot accounts to upvote the joke to the top, reducing the gravity, seriousness and perceived worth of the entire thread enormously.
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If anyone complains about the joke, paint them as a prude; someone who takes things too seriously and 'can't take a little joke'.
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If I were working on defining and categorizing tactics/techniques - alongside the creator of that list - I would absolutely consider Topic Dilution as the name of a category under which the very distinct tactic of Humor detraction would be positioned & defined.
However, I would point out that - in his list - there exists a reasonable general definition for Topic Dilution but there also exists some expansion on the definition that should actually be extracted and used in the defining of a specific type of Topic Dilution with its own name and placement adjacent to Humor detraction under the category of Topic Dilution.
Humor, anger, absurdity all work to dilute the topic from the main course.
I guess you could make different subsections, if you want to.
In my own lists and those shared with other researchers I would feel obligated to list distinct tactics - especially ones as widely deployed as Humor detraction.
When making a list where the goal is to keep the list as short as possible to increase the chances of it being read & propagated, I might include only the general category and its definition.
Though, in this case specifically, I'd likely append a brief e.g. section that includes something like: jokes, puns & other seemingly innocuous humor, or even just jokes & puns (depending on how long my list is growing).
That's a good addition, actually.
Can you review the list and modify it however you want. I didn't make the list, just consider it complete, but if you have more interesting notes to add, please do!
I know this is in writing, and you may think I am sarcastic or something, but I am genuinly interested because it is a good addition to the list. Including jokes as a method to confuse the readers from the main topic is not even mentioned directly.
It's an important note.