Since no one else is posting I'm guessing this isn't the deal I thought it was.

Joining in late (hey, today I actually concentrated on work—cue startled people fainting) to say that I got a similar feeling of unease to that bon bon and Joe got from that set of posts. While ALL conversations here should maintain civility toward all posters as a matter of course, I don't like the idea of people who aren't captivated by a buffista's creative work feeling they should slink away and never comment on the subject. The tone of those posts read to me as "I can't tell you to get out if you're not complimentary toward the new show, but know that you'll be unwelcome."

I never took the "go mental on...talentless hacks...poo" statement to refer to me. I thought that was a declaration of action for future incidents that overstepped bounds that I had not.

she did apologize in thread...

agreed

...we can move on...

please?

But Joe, you're completely ignoring the first half of the post:

I am not reasonable, and thus sit on my hands as much as possible so as not to go apoplectic on someone who says, "That promo did nothing for me" or, "The only reason I'd watch is because of Nathan, Tim, Kristen, the guy holding the boom...".

It feels like, if someone were to pop up in Lit and say, "I couldn't get past the first essay in Vampire People, it was boring, do the rest get better?"

I'm a big girl and can get that and welcome the criticism, but I imagine a handful Buffistae might get uppity about it, because they love me and wouldn't want to see my feelings hurt, and it's natural to get defensive about people you love.

Maybe I misintrepreted the juxtaposition of "talentless hacks" and "it's where I went with Juliebird's post" as causing your reaction instead of just being sequential thoughts, but that's how I read it.

You misinterpreted.

Which isn't at all like calling them talentless hacks who smell of poo.

Which is what I just said.

So the way it pinged HER is not unique to her either.

As I said, I was surprised how many people took a remark that seemed innocuous to me so negatively.

To me, it's almost as dismissive in tone to me as Allyson's original comment

Maybe it was. I don't hang out in Minearverse. I only went there because I read something elsewhere that indicated there had been some kind of blowup there, and I wanted to see what happened, both out of curiosity and stompy duty. And as I said originally (and you edited out when you quoted me) I was surprised at how much offense seemed to have been taken out of something so small. But the flame war I was led to expect hadn't broken out either, so I didn't see the need to keep reading.

General thoughts about sharing opinions on shows we watch. I’ve watched a new hit show, let’s call it Walk. After viewing I see it is being discussed in thread and pop in to share that A) It is the most brilliant flawless show evah B) It is unlikely I will watch again because I didn’t like the premise C) It was ok; I’ll give it one more try. I expect one of the following to happen. 1) Enthusiastic validation of my opinion 2) Vigorous challenges and debate of my points 3) To be completely ignored.

What I don’t anticipate happening is being popped in the nose metaphorically, or being told only positive words are spoken here. I expect that opinions on all shows will be varied and will note that lively discussion doesn’t happen unless people are freely expressing those opinions.

The worst case would be that we didn’t have anything to say!

The worst case would be that we didn’t have anything to say!

Like that could happen.

General thoughts about sharing opinions on shows we watch.

Honestly? And I'm speaking ONLY for me, here, so YMMV.

Being one of the few people who didn't feel the Firefly love, and also disliking The Inside, I didn't generally post in those threads, for two reasons.

(1) It's kind of pointless to discuss why you dislike a show/book/whatever. I mean, yeah, you've got some initial grousing, but after that, what else is there to say? "Yeah, man -- still sucks, yeah." There's really no point -- to me -- in posting, because that isn't exactly intelligent discourse.

(2) In my opinion -- and I expect to be refuted very strongly, here -- expressing less-than-positive feelings about a Minear-related show seems to be frowned upon, at best.

I don't mean that there are smackdowns and declarations of "How dare you not love everything Tim Minear has ever done!" It's just an attitude that seems -- to me -- to pervade the Minearverse threads.

Honestly, this is just my observation, and not meant to speak for anyone but me. And everyone knows what a crackpot I am, anyway.

Minearverse is more of a fan thread than say the VM thread. So people are there because they're fans of his work, as opposed to watchers of it.

At least I'd wager it works that way more often than not, and more often than in the show threads.

Although Tim couldn't care less, his presence in the thread strengthens that.

I don't think the thread can *not* be a fannish thread, given his participation and familiarity. So that's going to make it feel more awkward, I think, to criticise work.

But I don't think people should give into that, anywhere. To a lesser degree another example would be not wanting to trash Eureka in Boxed Set because Colin posts there, and because he's my best friend.

I'd think that what it might positively accomplish is to make the "show sux!" posts more eloquent. Not that we have much problems with eloquence, but it's easy to slam a show casually. If you're slamming it in front of the writer, should probably beef the language up.

To sum up: Feeling like criticism is more unwelcome is probably natural, but don't feel pressured into giving in to that sensation.

I have seen that, but when The Inside was airing I posted that I didn't think it would be my thing without any smackdown. A number of others did as well.

I don't think I am alone in being hesitant to speak ill of a Minear show. I don't have this feeling about Lost or VM or any of the other shows we discuss. Tim has said to bring it on in thread. So fear not, when the time comes I'll toss in my opinions whether they are glowing or not.