Erik-
"Just imagine a situation where this election
wouldn't be done on a website,
but orally, and each candidate would be given 5 minutes to introduce
themselves."
Erik, a bad analogy. This medium has its own rules, as
you often like to
point out yourself. On one of the talk pages you used unequal TV exposure as
an comparison. Same answer.
That is not an argument. If the medium is indeed different, you will have
to show how it is so different that the above logic does not apply.
If a candidate is willing to take the risk that the
reader turns away from
his or her statement because it is more words than content, so be it. I'd
rather be the judge of that myself as a reader.
If we clearly state at the onset that candidate profiles should be limited
to 1000 characters, and some go to more than twice than that length, we
can do two things - either get rid of the size limit altogether, or
enforce it. I personally think enforcing it is a good idea as otherwise
the page may become unwieldy, without being easy to fix because the
candidates' statements are pretty much their own. This is not just about
"giving the reader a choice" but also about making the page useful.
Similarly, if some people deviate from the template, we can either change
the template or enforce it being used. In this case I can live with both
options, but we need to settle on a fair and equal solution.
I hope you agree that we shouldn't make rules which we don't enforce. That
is often the origin of conflicts.
Regards,
Erik