Well, I'm not sure if this is actually a good idea, but how about two threads, a genre TV thread (Alias, Stargate, etc.) and a teen soap thread (OC, JofA, Everwood)?

ETA: This is not a formal proposal.

I still don't understand the problem with seeing what people want before we decide whether it's even worth proposing, never mind actually proposing.

I still don't understand the problem with seeing what people want before we decide whether it's even worth proposing, never mind actually proposing.

Me either. I like Teppy's idea, and think those are good guidelines, but we make new threads to serve the population of the board. Might as well see what the population's most interested in.

I like the idea of a poll to determine what we watch and would like to talk about, and decide from there. It could be something along the lines of:

Which of the following shows do you think you would enjoy discussing as part of the buffistas.org community?

• The O.C.
• Joan of Arcadia
• Alias
• 24
• Stargate
• Smallville
• Charmed
• Gilmore Girls
• Everwood
• Six Feet Under
• "Brilliant but Canceled" (I think this should be a new thread. Insert My So-Called Life, Freaks and Geeks, The Tick, etc. discussion. But that's for another time to discuss.)
• Other shows (fill in the box)

If we don't have convenient poll-making capabilities here, I'd be willing to set something up with basic forms on my own webserver, and compile votes for discussion. If you are all willing to trust me. Based on the voting and comments, we can consider whether we want to make combined whitefonted threads or Angel, Buffy, Firefly-type single-show threads, or do nothing at all, let b.org become a primarily social environment, and discuss other shows in LJ communities (as we are already doing for Joan of Arcadia.)

I just think it's weird that we have this great thread for discussing proposed changes to the forum, and no one wants to use it.

Well, I think the problem (for me anyway) is that now that Angel is gone, there's just no way out of having to have the "Who Are We Now?" discussion, and just proposing and voting down or to enact new threads doesn't actually accomplish that discussion.

Neither does discussing it here, but here is where it starts. Here is where we figure out out how to have that discussion.

(Edited for clarity)

But both things are being suggested, Sean. People want to know if people want new threads -- that's a Lightbulb discussion. People want to know who we are? That's a right here discussion.

Ah, yes. Well. In that case, I think the latter informs the former, and should be started first, I guess, but that's all I've got at the moment.

We are a community.

We are bonded by a common love of a particular mode of expression by a particular set of expressors. Also by duct tape.

We have common interests, but we also have a commonality that comes purely of community. It could have been centered around garden shears, and we could still be who we are, in some ways.

I know it will be a change, and for some it may appear more difficult. But I have been outside of the show discussion (no WB or UPN) for some time (years) now, and I still enjoy the community. So we will weather on. We will probably change, and dissolve to a certain extent, but odds are we'll be here a while yet.

So the question is, what are we going to talk about? And I think the answer is: same damn thing we've been talking about. Everything.

Of all the shows listed, I love Alias. I also plan to watch the new season of Dead Like Me, which starts in July. However, other than something like omigod-did-you-see-spydaddy-kill-that-man-with-a-flatulent-tuna! I don't see a lot of in-depth discussion going on. Angel and Buffy drove discussions on ways the shows related to life. The monsters of the shows meant something, and we endlessly debate(d) what those things meant. None of the shows I currently watch or plan to watch seem to trigger that kind of discussion. If there are no shows of the depth to talk about more than continuity issues, I don't see the need for any of them to have their own thread.