In technical communities (which there are many of who use Discourse) there is all sort of data that benefits from wider content areas, such as:
- code snippets
- logs
- ascii documentation and charts
- pdf and other file in-place preview
Current experience makes me pull my hair out as I have to scroll the content horizontally while seeing 20% unused space in my desktop monitor. It is literally an artificially created inability to use available space when it is needed that is very painful from the UX point of view.
These are not random decisions by the softwares/sites I listed above to make the space released by the sidebar taken by the content.
At least make it possible to “extend” and take all the space available except some aesthetic margins, e.g. via a hotkey.
Talking about staying focused… nothing distracts more than the need to scroll content horizontally as you try to read and comprehend it.
After all, it is a solvable problem: just keep the wrappable content’s width limited as it is now to keep it readable, but let unwrappable content take as much space as it is available.