eta context:

Our big picture is good. Can't we leave that be? Our little picture underwent a huge change, as of last Wednesday.

Seconded. I think this can wait until we've had a little time to see how things really do go.

Here's a question: Are there topics that people wish existed, but don't? Because while there are plenty of topics I'd be willing to vote for, I'm not personally feeling any particular lack.

how will it change things b) for those who don't care?

probably won't change my use of the board at all since

A community dedicated to discussions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly with humor, intelligence and obsessiveness.

But I'm hearing a lot of people saying it makes no difference if they do or they don't, and it's nothing we can or should try to affect anyway. And I don't get that.

yep, that's my stance. I guess I feel that if you want people mixing around you should suggest threads to them or go visit other threads yourself. I guess I'm saying I don't there is wrong with the board right now. I have no problem not knowing every poster or with some posters staying in one thread.

What was your chunk approach, Cindy? It seemed to already have assumptions in it, but I could be remembering it all wrong. And obviously we are not sharing axioms at the moment.

I'm not really feeling a lack either.

I don't go to TT -- but I do still hang out at WX TT TV and Oovies and some of the other TT WX diaspora threads.

OK-- I think I use the word mission because I work at a university and we use that word a lot...

For me, knowing what we all think our mission is would help me be able to make decisions on whether or not I think certain threads should be started. So if I know what everyone feels like, I feel like I will know what the right decision is, not just based on "I WANT TO DISCUSS THE OC NOW!!!", but based on what we think the board is about.

I also have to add that I think the word mission is mis-leading, and much as I love Buffistas, I don't think we are about to cure cancer or create world peace.

So, to me, our mission could be as simple as "To natter with other Buffistas in a snarky and usually polite manner"

I am not saying we have to codify something, just that I would like to get a handle on what the board is about in a post ME-verse world and help prevent us from being centerless. Some feel that we are already centerless and that is fine. I felt that we sentered on ME-verse, and with it gone, should try to articulate a new center.

cereal:

probably won't change my use of the board at all since

Which is kinda what I figured. If it does change things for me, I'll be pissed. Because I don't think things need changing.

If it doesn't change things, what was the point?

And when Serenity comes out, will we need a new mission?

If there aren't topic-specific threads, the topicy people will move off the board, and no one will be drawn in to replace them.

but there are topic threads, just not specific TV show threads.

Also, I wasn't saying I felt a lack, really. I am just more thinking of the future, and being able to articulate a mission would help me think of the correct "chunk" to start with.

I'm active in a mailing list organized around a pop culture icon of sorts but evolved into a little community, but when that icon went away, the list lost a lot of its vibrancy. It exists, but it doesn't, for one thing, grow, and it's just less than it was. I have a dread of that happening here, I guess.

Oh, dear. Yeah. I was on a very neat mailing list for Babylon 5 that was a great community until about three months after the last episode. Most people moved on to a different mailing list. Some of us just drifted away. Now, b.org is more complex than a mailing list, so there is at the least more here to serve as mass to push the inertia that will definitely keep this going for a while. The one thing I am not sure about is whether active force can be applied to said mass to keep it moving and not fall due to gravity. I'd like to think so. Sheer desire to keep the ties going and an established means of doing so exist. I think what we have here is a dither over details of how. On that, I'd say continuing to watch what the community seems to need and moving to do it when possible will do a fair bit.