How much sense of humor should we allow on PMSE/meta?

Question

Recently we had a question which referred to programming, mofo manifesto [warning, explicit content!]. The question was booted because of offensive content, which I agree with. However before it was closed it was edited in a way which, at least for me, was perfectly acceptable (no offensive language, warning about content under the link).

The question, to some point, was meant like a humorous approach to the subject of project management, but it seemed it crossed the line anyway.

However I recently asked rather humorous question on meta and is seems the reaction is exactly the same, no matter there's no explicit content there.

So the question pops up: how much of humor should be allowed here and whether we should have any differences between PMSE and meta?

I believe it is important to draw some lines so people know, or at least can be referred to, the rules.

Answer 1

Humor is fine so long as

1. The answer is still an answer

2. It's actually funny, for some reasonable value of funny

3. The humor doesn't drag any weird overtones into the post (religion, politics, etc)

Answer 2

Humour is ok; we have to keep in mind the goal of the site is to be professional. Project managers will flock naturally to a professional site (and more-so to one that has humour interspersed), but if it becomes too humourous or unprofessional, it might put people off.

We have to be also careful to avoid any jokes or comments that might offend some groups and not others -- such is the nature of cross-cultural sites like PM.SE.

Answer 3

Joke or no joke, the point is to answer a question or to ask a question. Why joke is wrong? I enjoy humor in professional life.

Answer 4

I deleted my answer to your joke in meta and moved my answer to another question. There's actually some great stuff in there about how much traffic actually gets directed to our site from just the Announcer badge, so I moved it to both preserve the intention of your question as well as the intention of my answer but without the two posts killing each other.

As far as jokes go, keep in mind many people have asked questions about how to game the site, so hopefully it's clear how others might misjudge your intentions at humor and how I misjudged your intentions.

I do think a certain degree of humor is fine, but the other question you're referring to had absolutely no value, and many others felt the same way.

Answer 5

Would your mother approve of this comment? If so i'd leave it on there.