>>7362...i might be misremembering as it was so long ago...
but, the prevailing idea at the time was that we just didn't want people to fight and debate on ponyville: the people should take that elsewhere
but we found, (1) that the users simply wanted to fight and argue, and (2) that this particular mode of speech was seemingly important to at least half the community.
thus, a sort of agreement was made, that we hoped would satisfy the half of the people who seemed to want to be able to argue freeing, and the other half who didn't want that
townhall was made then, with that in mind: a place where one could argue and debate, separate from other places.
However, a policy of enforced anonymity was enacted, for two-fold reasons. one is so that fights do not therein spill back into the other places, in the same way a masquerade might work -- through plausible deniability. the other was an appeasement to the arguers, who felt that one's points should be able to survive aside from one's "popularity", so to speak.
the /pol/iness makes me inclined to simply be rid of the whole board, but knowing that this could happen, means that it is likely to spill into pony and people will get mad once they don't have a place to do that stuff
but at the same time, i don't think any reasonable person wants to actually go debate stuff like this and argue... which makes the place full of unreasonable people, and people then having to come and defend their perspectives against said unreasonableness.
