ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5
Do you demand a simple and concise explanation of complicated and complex topics?
Fret not, dear voater, for ELI5 is here! Ask a complex question, and get a simple answer!
General guidelines:
Your explanation should be friendly and straightforward, but not condescending.
- 1.1. Above all, you're here to answer questions concisely. Don't get needlessly hostile or complicated in your response.
- 1.2. We aren't literally 5 year olds. Well, most of us aren't. We can handle big words and long sentences. There's no need to dumb down an explanation unless specifically asked to do so by the asker.
- 1.3. If specified by the asker, responses to particular levels of expertise are encouraged.
/v/ELI5 is a place to get simple explanations of complex topics.
- 2.1. Yes/no answer questions, and questions pursuing an answer without an explanation of that answer, are not allowed.
- 2.2: If it doesn't have an explanation, it isn't an explain like I'm five question.
- 2.3. Refrain from posing hypothetical or personal questions. Ideally, every question should have a factually based, reasonable explanation.
Feel free to send prohibited questions to /v/nostupidquestions, they'll help you out instead!
This isn't a debating subverse:
- 3.1. Don't ask for personal opinions (and don't ask potentially loaded questions)
- 3.2. Don't present a biased response
Top-level comments should be on-topic.
- 4.1. Self-explanatory, really.
- 4.2. Jokes are allowed and appreciated if they're on topic and not a whole top-level comment.
Someone came here for an answer, don't send them somewhere else.
- 5.1. Your response should not consist wholly of a redirection link within a sentence.
- 5.2. It is acceptable to link to outside sources for singular words or concepts. This can be done to save you explaining concepts that are non-central (yet still important) to your response.
- 5.3. Don't copy+paste from outside sources without paraphrasing. Outside sources don't always explain concepts in layman's terms.
Don't know? Don't teach.
- 6.1. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't try to teach someone else about it.
You are allowed to post a question that's been posted before, but to save your own time, search for it before posting anyway.
Tag your post as "Explained" once you're satisfied with an answer
All moderation decisions are made at the moderation team's discretion. You won't be protected by loopholes if you're using them to a detrimental effect.
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Own a questions subverse? Doesn't match any of the ones above? Send a mod a message, and we'll gladly add a link to it!
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[–] astroskag 0 points 5 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago
Money.
I don't mean that to be cynical, it's just what it is. There's an inordinate amount of paperwork and record-keeping, which generally necessitates hiring one or more lawyers. Then you've got to get a crazy amount of signatures on what amounts to a petition (the number varies by state, but it's usually upwards of 1000 and more like 40,000 in some places), so you've generally got to hire people to organize petition drives or head up door-to-door volunteers.
After that, in some places, you pay a filing fee outright to the state.
This is, by the way, on a per-state basis. There's not one single 'federal' process to get on the Presidential ballot nationwide - you have to do all this for each state. Some states have additional hurdles, you can read about them on a state-by-state basis here.
This is all engineered by the major parties to make things as difficult as possible for other candidates, and also why corporate donations are so important to candidates - this is what you have to do just to get on the ballot. Forget how much money you have to spend after that to actually get elected.
[–] [deleted] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
[–] astroskag 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
Yes, and that's arguably by design. Some people would say it's only one contributing factor in a larger system intended to make it nearly impossible for third-party candidates to gain traction at a national level.