I've noticed that humorous responses tend to get voted down quickly and regularly. Typically software developers have a keen sense of humor, and nurture it as a survival instinct. It does not make sense to me that Stackoverflow's default group responsive behaviour causes vote downs on humour!
What is the driving force behind the peer pressure to answer seriously and in a straight-forward manner?
There are plenty of websites you can go to if you want humor - SO is supposed to be about providing useful answers to useful questions.
That's why I also vote down the "What's your favorite data structure"-type questions.
They add little of value to SO - if they were phrased as "What's the best data structure in C++ for representing a phone directory", that would be ideal.
I think the powers that be have basically stated that a small amount of programming-related humor is acceptable but they don't want the site being swamped.
What I tend to do is look at the content of my "answer". If it provides useful information, I make an answer out of it, even if there's a little humor - see here for example. If it's all humor and not really useful, I'll either put it in as a comment (likely) or just move on (less likely, due to my personality type).
Because none wants another Slashdot, where you have to dig around about 800 replies down before you get something useful.
Use comments to make Jokes :) I personally like to Joke too, but I can also understand the more serious minded that jokes are out of place in serious answers, unless you use sarcasm to Joke but present the truth, however sarcasm doesn't seem to be recognizable by many folk here... so ...
Right and Funny answers are fine IMHO
I've had a couple of "joke" answers voted up - maybe you just aren't as funny as you think you are. :-)
One of the goals is for this to be a reference in place for years to come.
The jokey answer may be funny today, but will be annoying to the person looking for an answer to that question in six months.
I think downvoting is a good remedy -- the joke responses get a brief moment in the sun, then are out of the way of the helpful answers.
humor does not compute
If the only point of the post was to crack a joke, make a pun or to prove a certain level of cultural awareness, then it should be voted down.
If an otherwise solid answer was sweetened with a light touch and a whimsical reference, it should be voted up ... but then it would have been voted up anyway, because of its content.
I don't downvote humorous answers, but others do...
Should wrong but funny answers be posted?
But, I must admit, it does limit the distractions.
Mayhaps, an additional funny tag to the voting scheme...
What is the driving force behind the Stackoverflow's peer pressure to answer seriously and in a straight-forward manner?
"This is a place for questions that can be answered!" << This.
Iff you answer the question that was asked, and answer it correctly and specifically, then it's time for other features, e.g. humor.
Else, it's not really a good answer, therefore is unhelpful, therefore should be downvoted.
Comments, apparently, do not have these requirements.
Maybe we should ask for a humor tag to mark answers, so those that don't want humor can filter them out, and those that like humor can enjoy themselves. After all Humor is the highest (requires most knowledge and empathy) form of human communication ;)
I brought my sense of humor here, but no one laughed.
Humorous responses tend to get voted down quickly and regularly... if humor (or at least attempted humor) is the primary point of the response. This is as it should be, because humor does not help to resolve technical issues nor to answer most questions of the sort that SO is intended to deal with.
If, OTOH, the reponse is a solid, meaningful, and helpful answer to the question which just happens to have some humor mixed in with the solid, meaningful, and helpful information, then I've seen no tendency for such to be downvoted.
The problem is merely that useful content and humorous content tend to be inversely proportional. SO doesn't downvote humor, it downvotes non-helpful answers.
If an attempt at humor within an answer is otherwise not valuable, and if the question is otherwise serious, and if the answer is distracting, then I think downvoting is justified.
These sorts of "humorous" answers are akin to some jack-ass making jokes or throwing pies at someone trying to change a tire. Humor is fine as a complement to getting things done, when it gets in the way of work, then it becomes a problem. Because, to be honest, a lot of this "humor" isn't as funny as the posters think it is.
As someone above pointed out, valuing humor as highly as concrete help is a recipe for a rapidly diminishing signal to noise ratio, as seen on slashdot and elsewhere.
If you want to make a joke in a serious topic, put it in a comment.
If the entire Q&A thread is humorous, then downvoting isn't justified (unless the joke isn't funny, live by the sword, etc.)
Edit: keep in mind this is coming from someone who posted a funny answer to the (now deleted) "How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" question. Humor is good, but you have to be careful from letting it get out of control.
I've noticed that humorous responses tend to get voted down quickly and regularly.
I have noticed that they are sort of OK as long as the question is in the vague/subjective/social/whats-your-favorite-colour category. This humorous but useless answer of mine is currently at +3.
So, IMHO it depends on the question. Humorous answers to precise technical questions are annoying; to vague questions, they might not be.
May be the moderators or Whoever wrote the FAQ should be more clear when thy say " Bring your sense of humour, But not when a serious question is asked"..or something like that..
People can downvote, but if there is little downvotable posts, normal but not strictly programming related posts get downvoted easily too. That includes humorous posts but also posts that don't seem to be programming related even if they are at least somewhat.
I don't know if what you're saying is exactly true, down votes aren't consistent for humorous responses. In fact the highest voted answer on Stack Overflow is funny (see here) as it still answers the question, conveys a message and everyone loves it.
Sometimes people are funny enough to get away without answering the question, and in that case the up votes will generally outweigh the down votes. I generally try to go by what the alt tag says for the image "This answer is not useful", and base my up/down votes around that. If you can reply with a clear answer and add in some humour, everybody wins, but if you have nothing constructive to say add it as a comment.
