Henry Dotterer wrote:
Basically, in the interest of making it easier for a large number of people to weigh in and have their input considered, the format asks posters to limit the length and number of their contributions. That way, the thinking goes, everyone interested may be able to get a post in.
That is flawed logic. Everyone can always get "a post in". Limiting the number of posts simply means that people can only participate at the start of the discussion but not later on, when the discussion has developed. In fact, you may end up discouraging people from pitching in early.
I like what I perceive to be the effect of this format on the discussion; within two forum "pages", as many as twenty different posters had shared their thoughts in a concise manner.
That is just self-fulfilling prophesy. Of course the number of different people per page is going to higher if there is going to be a limit on the number of posts per person.
And yes, we will implement an "agree" option soon.
It's tempting to think that by limiting the post length, people will reduce the number of points they make in the post, which would make an "agree" option possible.
But I suspect people who want to make more than one point will still make them, albeit in a more concise way, so unless the "agree" feature can somehow ask the user each time "what exactly do you agree with", the "agree" feature will soon mean just as much as the "like" feature on other platforms... in other words, instead of "I agree with what was said", it'll simply come to mean "I confirm that I have seen this".