Replying to the first rant, I guess I, like Sced, am unaware of major complaining about minor niggles on this forum.
Now here's some selective reading responses, addressed to no-one in particular:
Totally agree with Larry, Scedastic, ChasingShadows, and Laura. If you reduce the mileage reporting to numbers, I don't think you'd have a whole lot of participation. I enjoy hearing what everyone is doing, how running fits into their other exercise routines, and life in general. I run alone, and do my strength-training in my garage so I wouldn't have any gym-rat camaraderie without the mileage forum.
If beginners are put off by other people's accomplishments, well, that's just too bad. There's always someone better than you, and if you can't deal with that then you've got much more fundamental work to do than learn how to run barefoot. I, for one, have never detected more than perhaps the slightest competitiveness on the mileage forum, and beginners are always made to feel welcome. Everyone pretty much applauds each other's progress, sympathizes with their set-backs, and gains needed encouragement when things get a little tough or frustrating. Plus I've learned a lot about running in general, hearing about all the diverse approaches expressed on the forum--every day runners, high mileage runners, run-commuters, triathlete training, trail running, and so on. I try some stuff I wouldn't have known about otherwise, and then see what works best for me. There are occasionally some interesting debates, and they tend to be very civil.
As for injuries, I think it's vitally important that we share our experiences so that we can all benefit from collective wisdom. It was enormously helpful to read an old ITBS thread that was linked for me when I reported my ITB strain. I was able to understand the nature of the thing and then formulate a plan for overcoming it. I'm glad I didn't treat it like a minor niggle, which is what I thought it was initially, because trying to push through ITB strain seems to be the best recipe for making it a chronic, full-on ITB syndrome, as I've learned from others here. And as someone who was held back needlessly by niggling TOFP for more than a year, I feel a certain obligation to tell folks what worked for me. It seems like a lot of doctors are wrongly diagnosing BFR injuries and this is one of the few places where people can get good, alternative information. The Ask the Doc forum is good, but it's also nice to get more varied and detail reports.
As for going off on tangents, I know I'm guilty of using the mileage forum as a proxy blog, but you know, if you don't like it, please feel free to skim or skip. This isn't assigned reading, so no need for resigned ranting. If a majority expressed a desire to keep the mileage reporting more tightly focused, I would be happy to comply, but I think it's actually just the opposite. The more gabby the forum has become, the more people are participating. I suppose we could post a spreadsheet similar to the one we have for the Winter Challenge, for those that want to skip to the chase. That would be good for strict "just the facts ma'am" mileage reporting: Today it was really cold and I had to stop several times to loosen my new minshoes' laces on my way to running 12 miles, which I know sounds like a lot but believe me it took a long time to work up to it.
As for scaring off potential barefooters, I think honesty is the best policy. I think most of the injuries in any case are more typical runner's injuries, but the bare-curious deserve to know what they're getting into as far as TOFP, tight calves, temp and terrain challenges and most importantly, what actually existing barefoot runners have found as solutions. There continues to be a great deal of misperception about BFR, so I think a site that presents every facet of the experience is to be lauded.
