There is no set type of post that gets votes. But the general rule is: Is it helpful? Does it teach? Does it detail interesting points? (If you notice all but one of the things that you posted that got points match those.)
Basically discourse. You don't always have to have super comments. You can just talk, and argue - you may not get points for it, but that's OK, and sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised. And you won't usually get downvotes. Unfortunately sometimes you will (like the Linus comment). I've had it happen to me too, it's not pleasant but you have to ignore it. If you know your comment was good, then just accept it and move on.
(Small message to newcomers: Don't post anything provocative until you build up a Karma cushion or you may end up with a killed account. And you won't be told if that happens!)
Things like that picture you posted are just stupid. Reddit makes you think people like it, but actually people find it annoying. Or perhaps people like it sometimes when they are in the mood. But that's not what this site is for - different sites for different purposes.
Jokes also don't go over well, except in rare cases (apparently your rickroll was - but don't do it often, it's rare). The reason people dislike jokes is that they have a tendency to take over sites, and people are very worried about that happening here. But they are accepted rarely - which is exactly what people want - mostly good stuff with a small smattering of levity.
So when you have a joke, combined with a stupid sentence like the one in the picture you get massive downvotes. You may think that overloading the meaning of the words is the problem. But if you had written "Was there quality of life before the internet?" you also would have gotten downvotes since it's an empty sentence - if you want to talk about that then keep going, don't just raise the question (if you notice other people did in fact talk about this very topic). Putting that in a image instead of in text made it much worse, using "lolcat" made it worse. Combine everything (joke, image, empty sentence, lolcat) together and the downvotes are quite expected.
Basically discourse. You don't always have to have super comments. You can just talk, and argue - you may not get points for it, but that's OK, and sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised. And you won't usually get downvotes. Unfortunately sometimes you will (like the Linus comment). I've had it happen to me too, it's not pleasant but you have to ignore it. If you know your comment was good, then just accept it and move on.
(Small message to newcomers: Don't post anything provocative until you build up a Karma cushion or you may end up with a killed account. And you won't be told if that happens!)
Things like that picture you posted are just stupid. Reddit makes you think people like it, but actually people find it annoying. Or perhaps people like it sometimes when they are in the mood. But that's not what this site is for - different sites for different purposes.
Jokes also don't go over well, except in rare cases (apparently your rickroll was - but don't do it often, it's rare). The reason people dislike jokes is that they have a tendency to take over sites, and people are very worried about that happening here. But they are accepted rarely - which is exactly what people want - mostly good stuff with a small smattering of levity.
So when you have a joke, combined with a stupid sentence like the one in the picture you get massive downvotes. You may think that overloading the meaning of the words is the problem. But if you had written "Was there quality of life before the internet?" you also would have gotten downvotes since it's an empty sentence - if you want to talk about that then keep going, don't just raise the question (if you notice other people did in fact talk about this very topic). Putting that in a image instead of in text made it much worse, using "lolcat" made it worse. Combine everything (joke, image, empty sentence, lolcat) together and the downvotes are quite expected.