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wilkox comments on Mitigating Social Awkwardness - Less Wrong
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This is generally good advice, but can backfire if you show no signs that you are conscious of making a joke. Making people laugh while remaining deadpan yourself is a high-level humour skill. Listeners who are not sure whether or not to laugh will look for cues from other listeners and from you, and if you're not laughing they may just go along with that.
Often it's better to make it obvious that you've amused yourself with your own joke, with a smile or small chuckle, but not react to whether others laugh or not. That displays confidence, and gives others the social room to laugh if they want.
All this is extremely context-dependent. On some of the most fun occasions when I told jokes or funny stories, I was barely able to tell them comprehensibly because I was unable to suppress spasms of laughter. Of course, if the audience and the atmosphere is not right, this can make you look like an idiot or extremely annoying.
Oh, yes. Smile, but do not actually laugh. I'm sorry, I missed that earlier.
I think this would be a useful edit for the list.
Edited in.
I wonder if it might not be worth it to try to make a wiki out of this, like 'writing the unwritten laws of social interaction' or something. It would be a huge project. I don't really consider myself an expert in these things, just someone willing to try to articulate the rules as I see them.