Voted up for being a valid, well-argued position that I can clearly see isn't just a mistake. I do wonder, though, if being this sort of general-purpose web site is something we could actually pull off. What causes us to have our unusual level of quality? Do we attract people who tend to be especially tolerable? Do we train people to be especially worthwhile?

I think significant evidence for the former is the fact that virtually everyone here uses capitalization and punctuation (I have seen one counterexample, and much fuss was made over it) and, for the most part, correct spelling and grammar. I assume that reading Yudkowsky doesn't cause one's language abilities to improve. I would hate to see what would happen if someone incapable of spelling reasonably well came on here.

(Can I mention that using "the reason being" as a determiner phrase irritates me? It sounds like a misinterpretation of the dependent clause "the reason being that X" as being the independent clause "the reason being is that X".)