@CGCampbell I believe rep in general correlates strongly with quantity, since it takes 5 downvotes to negate a single upvote, and there's always somebody feeling generous. T.E.D. is probably right that a lengthy, assertive answer attracts non-reading votes; but a well composed answer might convince a casual reader despite being totally wrong, too.

I mean, this answer (history.stackexchange.com/questions/14588/…) got two upvotes despite being absolutely, comprehensively, uncompromisingly wrong.

That's a net rep gain for him despite being, frankly, a work of fiction.

@T.E.D. I'll try to include succint TL;DRs more often...

@Semaphore Well, personally I'd prefer answers to just be short enough to not need a TL;DR. Still, sometimes long answers happen. I have gone back in and added TL;DR's to the front of my own answers when an edit make them (IMHO) too long, so I do appreciate them.

Another strategy I've used is to find a sentence that I think embodies my "answer", and boldface it. That way the important part jumps out at you, and the rest can be read at leisure.

@T.E.D. I like this site because sometimes @Schwern is going to write an obscenely long post on "this year in tank history" (history.stackexchange.com/questions/8127/…)

@T.E.D. Most answers (especially of mine) should probably be shorter. And as far as I can tell, my short answers get way more upvotes than my long answers. But I do occasionally write a long answer--knowing that fewer people will read it--with the assumption that it's for people who really care about the topic

@T.E.D. Although sometimes after I write my initial answer and realize it's too long, I'll edit the post, cutting out all the details and qualifications I've made. I'll just leave a line at the end that say "See the edit log if you want more."

Would anyone be unhappy if I promoted the proposed mythology SE with a new meta topic?

I can't speak for everyone, but my guess is a lot of our users would be quite happy about that existing as a stack. Rather a lot of folks come on here with mythology questions, and it would be nice to have a place to migrate them. Currently our options are to either close them, or insist they get reworded to be history questions informed by the myth.

@Mr.Bultitude So personally (for what the stack janitor's opinion is worth), I'm cool with a meta post here for it.

...heck I might even hang out there a bit myself if I can free the time. My Greek mythology lore is pretty strong, and I'm moderately good with Norse, but I'd love to learn more about other mythos.

@Mr.Bultitude ...for instance, a few weeks back I stumbled across an awesome North American mythological creature I'd never heard of before: underwater panther. I'm frankly appalled at my own education that I had to be nearly 50 before I stumbled across this badass.