It's about putting up some resistance to the overwhelming trend for forum sites to devolve to Slashdot. If you wan't Slashdot, go there. Most of the same subjects are covered.
It's more about discussion quality. Does humor add to a discussion? Sure. It's good to laugh. but, what happens when the majority (and this will happen) of your replies are just simple grabs at humor? the quality discussion gets lost in the noise. So it comes down to principle, members here have agreed to stay on topic, expand on it, dive deeper, annotate. if you want to throw some humor in the midst of doing that, I imagine that would be fine.
> what happens when the majority (and this will happen) of your replies are just simple grabs at humor? the quality discussion gets lost in the noise.
I think this is only a problem if the humor isn't funny enough. I don't know if I hit the mark here, but if I make unfunny jokes I hope I get called out on it (or at least see it reflected in the vote totals), and that'll definitely regulate my posting. If we somehow manage to make enough good jokes to drown out on-topic discussion, I'm going to be very impressed more than concerned I think.
"Oh look, a comment that slightly deviates from THE RULES of the site? Better jump into the guidelines and copy-paste the relevant passage to prove how vile the poster is. When he reads my comment, he will certainly drown in guilt and despair and refrain from posting something like that again. That will show him!"
I appreciate both the original joke, the reprimanding comment explaining the rules, and your comment. All are needed, in the right amounts, for this site to not decay into one extreme or another.
