It's true but you're not supposed to say it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks, yeah I discovered that after I posted. Didn’t the guidelines also used to say something about not making puns or joke threads?

The guidelines don't say it now, which is what matters.

And yet, the votes speak for themselves.

Some puns get upvoted, some don't. I'm happy to take the downvotes when it's not a well-liked one.

You can't know what a comment is before you have read it, so no that isn't a solution.