The fundamental rule of the post was “Upvote anything you do not agree with.” This is an unintuitive action. Unfortunately, that instruction was buried in the middle of the introductory paragraph. With a discussion title like this one, people want to jump straight into the fray, so they may disregard the text entirely. As such, I’d argue that we needed a formatting tweak:
Write the rule on its own line. Make it bold.
Also, if you’re worried about substantive conversation overtaking meta-conversation, add a “Don’t ask why” rule (although that will be fairly unpopular). Many of the contrarian views are flatly and completely against the site’s majority. Opening a thread on why that’s the case just turns that comment thread into a shooting match of everyone against the commenter.
The fundamental rule of the post was “Upvote anything you do not agree with.” This is an unintuitive action. Unfortunately, that instruction was buried in the middle of the introductory paragraph. With a discussion title like this one, people want to jump straight into the fray, so they may disregard the text entirely. As such, I’d argue that we needed a formatting tweak:
Write the rule on its own line. Make it bold.
Also, if you’re worried about substantive conversation overtaking meta-conversation, add a “Don’t ask why” rule (although that will be fairly unpopular). Many of the contrarian views are flatly and completely against the site’s majority. Opening a thread on why that’s the case just turns that comment thread into a shooting match of everyone against the commenter.