Good point! Found it difficult to get out all the ideas and features of the platform within the public discussion board system without being intrusive to people who just wanted to lurk. I've made some clearer routes from the landing to people who just want to browse as a guest.

My ideas for writing benefits would be both that people can make their replies and new threads as long/short form as they want.

There's also plenty of categories where we welcome blog style posts whether you want to write a tutorial, development log, share an achievement, etc. Self-promotion rules are relaxed because as an industry we're creators and I think platforms such as Reddit can really stifle this.