Humor == or != Meta Post?

Question

Do we need humor when we post here in Meta? I am Newbie with a little concern here. Any answer will be much appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Humor? Or no humor?

Either way works for me.

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In all seriousness, though, here are some hilarious meta posts:

• Ubuntu misspellings
• Are there any memes on Ask Ubuntu?
• Ten tips to handle your question in the worst possible way
• Is Jorge Castro a Robot?
• Can't edit due to mention of The Walking Dead (though the hilarity is unintentional)
• Ask Ubuntu Chat Twitter Bot (though, admittedly, the capybara is doing most of the heavy lifting)

Hmm, I thought that list was going to be way longer when I started making it. Maybe meta isn't funny after all. I don't know though. I'm smiling right now, personally.

On the bright side, our OS is not at war with anyone and someone is eager to help.

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Often, when someone comes to meta, they come here because they are concerned about something. Sometimes that doesn't leave too many opportunities for levity. Sometimes it does. Either way, that's okay. Being funny shouldn't get in the way of discussing our concerns, but taking ourselves too seriously shouldn't get in the way of it either.

By the way, you may have noticed votes are used differently on meta -- on the main site, they express evaluations of the quality of the post. On meta, they can serve that function, but at least as often are used to express agreement and disagreement with an opinion about site policy.

So if you do ever have something downvoted on meta, try not to take it too seriously. (Same deal for upvotes.) It's for a reason that votes on meta don't give or take away any reputation. Personally, I've sometimes entertained the notion that meta posts should have four vote buttons, and the total score should be represented as a Gaussian integer, with quality on the real axis and agreement on the imaginary axis.

^{To be viewed sideways from behind your screen. (Replace i with j, if using Python.)}

But then I realize... that would just be silly.

Answer 2

As with the rest of the site - we want signal, not noise. Its fine to inject a little humour as part of making a point, but jokes posted as questions, questions posted as jokes, and things that are trying to be jokes or questions but arn't wouldn't belong here.

I use jokes as a tool, to help people remember, to make a point . I know my audience.

So, if you need to ask if we need humour, the answer is no. You'll know when to make funnies when you understand the site better.

Answer 3

You need a good sense of humour when you get down-voted :p