What you describe happens when your post exceeds a certain length. I do not know what this length is, but it appears to be quite short. Try to shorten your text, or alternatively, break it up into two parts. (I did this with my idea for insurance to protect renters from rent increases. Note also that I flipped the "insurance against decline in home values" idea that made Nalebuff and Ayres famous. Hey, you two...how come YOU didn't come up with that?)

I discounted length as the problem as I had seen submissions about three times the length of the one rejected. So I am still puzzled.

Currently we do not automatically reject ideas based on anything other than length. As I told ftlpdx, you might want to try breaking the idea up into two parts - either as two different ideas or the first part as the "idea" and the second part as the first follow-up comment.

It is a problem with the software of the system. If you take more than a minute or two to compose a suggestion, the system times out and you have to login again. Unfortunately the system does not remember what you submitted and you have to start over again. Even worse, if you copy and paste your origianal work into the new text field that comes up, it will be posted to the wrong location.

My advice: Compose your response in MicroSoft Windows Notepad and then copy and paste it in the WhyNot text field as soon as possible after you create a new field. Use your "Back" button if it has been more than a couple of minutes and resubmit your composed information.

I hope this has been fixed. I haven't encountered this problem yet myself, but I have occasionally (in the past) on other sites, and it's quite irritating, especially when text gets lost.

PS: If the time-out problem still exists, the page should contain a warning of its presence and an advisory on how to work around it, such as was suggested by junkstopshere, above.