Some ideas to make more of PPR and CMST

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I've thought about this one off and on for the past few years and something reminded me of it today.

It seems like we have a lot of people on the forum who are highly educated, both academic and lay, who have invested considerable time researching their present points of view on particular topics. Really this could apply as much to PPR as it could the Computers, Science, and Technology forum or professional-grade achievements in the Arts forum.

I was wondering if there might be a way to nurture some of this a bit more by giving it specific venue. Something like a corner of the forum for formal articles and thesis, a bit like a 'College of WP'. Seems like it could be a great way to harness a lot of the best of what we have here.

A special venue for formal articles and theses? I think that Alex calls it "The Front Page", but I'm not sure ... you might want to ask him.

That's had a limited scope, ie. Autism news and events, how certain aspies deal with Asperger's, dating advice, dealing with depression, etc.. I'm thinking of an application closer to those with expertise in certain areas, whether post-graduate work or just very dedicated laypersons, having something like a knowledge-sharing board and writing professional articles on things big-issue related but not necessarily autism related is more like it.

The biggest drawback perhaps would be figuring out how to manage it, figuring out how to vet the articles or have some degree of exclusivity (by quality of content) without the more egalitarian members getting too bent out of shape about it.

I'm not demanding any of this, just throwing the idea out there to see if enough other people think it might be something worth having. If enough people think there's something to it maybe there is. If it's just me and one or two other people it's probably not worth pursuing at this point.

do you think there should be a change to the actual page layout, or would it be kept the same?

with emphasis on quality on content, it could be an opportunity to use the post approval system we have in place (and is never used), but i could see how bias would arise there if those approving it do not share that expertise.

I was really just thinking whatever option might prove to be the most practical - I don't have a strong personal preference on way or another.

There has to be a place for spur-of-the-moment posts that aren't intended to be particularly deep (such as immediate political developments), but it would be helpful to have a place for more in-depth discussion of politics, philosophy, religion, or anything in between. I'd also agree that having an approval system prior to posting could make things challenging if people involved aren't well schooled in a particular topic. That might require a well built set of guidelines. You should be able to write on almost any topic (providing its audience appropriate) but you might need to write the post or article in an academic framework.