Thank you for your concern Wolfram. It is pretty much to be expected that Natter would take a tilt toward the political at the moment. It will take a tilt toward the O.C. next week when Ryan and Seth declare that theirs is a pure love. Many of us are using the blurr our eyes when we can't deal with the political method of reading and skip right to the fun catty exposed breast discussion. Many of us really need to discuss the election issues.

I think everyone is being very gentle and considerate of each other and it makes me proud to be a Buffista.

I think we should give people two or three weeks after the election to get everything out of their systems, then think about proposing a politics thread if the volume doesn't go down.

I'm certain it will go down. I felt better getting some of it out and the discussion here is really worthwhile.

I think individuals are best at figuring out when it's too much to take and taking a break from the discussion when it suits them. The talk goes on and it eventually swings back to more pleasant and easily discussable topics.

I wholeheartedly agree with Laura and Lyra...and Cashmere saves it from sounding like an unfortunately named set of twins, because I agree with her too. I'd have been lost without Natter the last week, but I know the politics will ease down considerably in a bit.

Shirky has a new essay up, "Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software".

Thank you, le nubian. As noted, the ballot was plenty good enough for people to get what they really wanted. There was a definite preference expressed, and it was a tricky juggle all the way through. I really appreciate the time and conscientous effort you put into it.

And now you also know why I was laughing and compared thread proposal to volunteering for the bake sale of doom.

Some of the FAQ language about spoilers is going to need to be reworked.

Tom, I was just gonna post a link to that. I find it really interesting, and I wonder how he would view our system here. It's worked so far, but I think it's possible it could crumble under the weight of lots of flaming.

Could a nice stompy please change my username from Ashtareth to Zenkitty?

t blinks sleepily

Would you like a corresponding name-change in the random quote generator, should it be necessary?

(Edit: Not to say you aren't quotable, of course, just that me no have source file handy.)

Came across this in the upper-left:

River: Time to go to sleep again. Simon: No, [Chinese]. It's time to wake up.
'Ariel'

The [Chinese] is "mei mei," meaning "sister."