I'm not clear on why a group of people needs more in common than wanting to talk to each other.

this is what I've been meaning. Yes, we sometimes only talked about the shows, but people stopped watching and we often got off topic and we are basically a community of people that like to talk to each other in a certain way, recognizing certain community standards.

I totally get that some people do not want to jump into natter and post about something that is not the topic of conversation, I do. When we work out the server/coding issues people shouls propose whatever they are most comfortable will as per new threads.

Generally we talk about a show the day after it airs-- presumably that wouldn't change (and it's pretty easy to find in natter, too). And the discussion will be overtaken by discussion of more recent television airings-- that won't change, either.

But the pace and volume will be different. Coming into Natter to look for Survivor posts, say, the day after the airing, can mean going back through hundreds of posts. More important, for me, is that even after I've done that, if I want to say something, it often seems like such a silly thing to be bringing back to the table when the discussion has moved so far on and the people who had been posting about the show might not even be around. With some sort of dedicated thread, it's more likely that I'll find the discussion I'm looking for, and that my posts will find their way to the interested parties.

I'm not totally committed to a tv thread, and I'd want us to think carefully about the structure, but I think I would use it and find it valuable.

If I watch Arrested Development on Sundays, Everwood on Mondays, Gilmore Girls on Tuesdays and who knows what else, and, as will happen once I'm back in school, I can mostly only post at night, I can never use the thread for the intended purpose because of (1) spoilers and (2) being three hours behind a large group of people already discussing the episodes.

I think the spoiler policy for a general TV thread will have to be simply: if you haven't seen the show don't go in the thread. There's no other way it could work. Unless you mean real unaired spoilers. But it's got to be viewer beware, and on the individual poster to stay out if they're behind. Also I think a General TV thread would alleviate the time difference problems - you couldn't watch and post, but there should be room and time to post about that particular episode on the same night.

I'm also not bummed about separate natter communities. There have ALWAYS been seperate communities and we don't and shouldn't be all things to everyone.

Why do you think that separate Natter communities are a bad thing, Hec? Do you think all the Natter should be in one place? There should be less of it?

I see a distinction between their being sub-communities driven by interest, and sub-communities that become factions. And no, I don't think the interest driven threads are de fato factions. I think that the more drift we have toward pure natteration will make it difficult for the core sense of community to hold. Now that core sense doesn't necessarily require that everybody intersect in the same threads. That's obviously impossible now. But the more we trend toward groups of affiliation rather than interest, the more frictions I expect will occur and a sense of us/them.

The interest driven threads pull people out of just their cozy pockets (I think) and maintain lines of discussion which foster the whole community. It's about a certain notion of linking horizontally, rather than vertically (as the Natter threads tend to do).

Again, I'm talking about general principles, and am not interested in forcing focused Natter or requiring people to participate as an act of board citizenship. I'm just talking about what I think will provide a useful dynamic for healthier board relationships, and the dangers I potentially see in Nattery factionalization.

I think the spoiler policy for a general TV thread will have to be simply: if you haven't seen the show don't go in the thread. There's no other way it could work.

But then you could never go in the thread if you weren't up to date on everything. If I tape ER to watch later, I wouldn't be able to go in to talk about Survivor or Hot Danny Taylor until I'd seen ER. Or whatever

I never go into movies for this very reason. I may want to talk about a movie I just saw, but I rarely go see things opening weekend and I donlt want to be spoiled for soemthing I haven't seen yet.

ita--

I am not sure why I am vaguely discomfitted by not having a common ground. It is more not having a common ground to add new people (which will happen regardless). So I could be assured that any new person MOST LIKELY was a fan of TV shows I was also a fan of. And that would make them less ike a stranger to me.

I am not being objective or trying to speak for anyone other than myself. It just makes me feel weird that maybe we don't know who we are, and I am reaching for a way to define it so that my brain can stop thinking about it.

msbelle, the spoiler policy for the movies thread as given in the thread header is:

Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.

We tend to be pretty cautious in practice.

Using that as a guideline for a general TV thread, maybe whitefont everything for one week, whitefont HSQ until the end of the season? Though I don't think a general thread is the best idea because the spoiler problem would be so huge.

But we don't just get along because we all liked Buffy, if we did we would enjoy other Buffy boards too. And we don't stop getting along or having things in common or very likely having likes and dislikes wrt to media of all sorts just because the shows are off the air. You are still Sophia to me with or without a Buffyverse or other ME shows.

The interest driven threads pull people out of just their cozy pockets (I think) and maintain lines of discussion which foster the whole community.

But historically, I don't think this has been the case.

But historically, I don't think this has been the case.

Do you think my basic premise is unsound? I think trending towards natter threads without a tighter focus will encourage factionalization. I think interest driven threads focus the discussion on specific things which draws people in who feel able to join the conversation because it's on topic, and that they don't have to feel like they don't belong because they haven't spent months chatting in Bitches.

I do think historically the music thread and the literary thread have pulled people in from other groups.

What's your experience in other boards, Ple?