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.