It's been intimidating for everyone I recommend to come and pay a visit. It's true that people around me aren't native English speakers, but there's more to it than that.

The answer to the question you linked is pretty fine

@JohnDvorak Hmm? Which question?

Oh you mean the revision one.

No, I was referring to the revisions, not the question or the answer.

SO main is quite intimidating (by its effect on reputation) if you want to ask a good question, too.

Yeah, those revisions are weird

The guy complained about weak moderation, and their meta post got closed, locked, deleted, unlocked, reopened, rinse and repeat.

no repeat just yet, though there is a delvote pending

@JohnDvorak I think both SO main and meta were designed in a way to discourage unnecessary participation (part of the feeling can be called intimidation), but some factors contribute to this feeling and make it too large to bear.

Language barrier, the internet issue, assuming intentions behind binary actions etc.

Some have fixes, some don't.

Meta needs some emotional and logical capacity.

discouraging unnecessary participation is fine, but not to the point that it removes good content. But then again SO has a lot of content worth discouraging from.

I would never write up a meta post when I'm tired or distracted.

@JohnDvorak Yeah I agree.

Do you mean a question, or an answer? Answering seems safe.

The part that stinks is that this feeling is greater for people who want to contribute something actually useful. The reckless disinterested student would just shrug it off.

agreed

How do you fix that though?

The new feature changes need to channel this 'fear'. Right now we might be missing out on good content and not doing a good job in discouraging bad content

I guess some communication helps.

Those darned assumptions play a big part in this.

"This comment that is fairly critical of my post got ONE upvote. OMG what does that mean"

> Just because it's on Google doesn't mean it's true!

@Marshmallow that assumes meta was designed at all