The reason for the enforcement of style within the forum is not to keep out the wisdom and experience of ordinary people, but in the long run, to increase it. It seems a bit backwards that keeping posts out would increases the amount of posts but consider this:
If the forum was a lot of spam about miracle cures and flat earth, few people would be think it’s a good place to post their ideas about agricultural reform.
If the forum had lots of good ideas but they were all 1000 page books, few people could read them, and the comments could not discuss one point together since there would be dozens to respond to.
If the forum had lots of good ideas but they were all tweets, few nuanced ideas could get discussed.
I also think very few ideas will be missed because I don’t think it’s too steep of a barrier to ask people to write their main points in a few sentences. I think it is still inclusive even of people with very different backgrounds.
If people had to sort through unrelated poetry, personal rants, and many repeats of the same old ideas, the good points would be difficult to find. Ironically, those people/ideas would get drowned out if there were hundreds of posts without much content. So we ask everyone to be as concise as possible.
Encouraging posts that are concise, encouraging friendliness, encouraging criticism, are all are for the sake of keeping the discussion productive and moving forward.
The reason for the enforcement of style within the forum is not to keep out the wisdom and experience of ordinary people, but in the long run, to increase it. It seems a bit backwards that keeping posts out would increases the amount of posts but consider this:
If the forum was a lot of spam about miracle cures and flat earth, few people would be think it’s a good place to post their ideas about agricultural reform.
If the forum had lots of good ideas but they were all 1000 page books, few people could read them, and the comments could not discuss one point together since there would be dozens to respond to.
If the forum had lots of good ideas but they were all tweets, few nuanced ideas could get discussed.
I also think very few ideas will be missed because I don’t think it’s too steep of a barrier to ask people to write their main points in a few sentences. I think it is still inclusive even of people with very different backgrounds.
If people had to sort through unrelated poetry, personal rants, and many repeats of the same old ideas, the good points would be difficult to find. Ironically, those people/ideas would get drowned out if there were hundreds of posts without much content. So we ask everyone to be as concise as possible.
Encouraging posts that are concise, encouraging friendliness, encouraging criticism, are all are for the sake of keeping the discussion productive and moving forward.