Even if those who regularly use Premium love the idea, why is it only up to them?

It's not, which is why it's being brought up here instead of simply in-thread.

Who else posts in Premium and is in favor of this?

I post in Premium but I think it should continue to be used for the purpose for which it was originally created. Basically for the reasons that ita put forth and I don't think it's fair to people who can't get the premium shows and plan on watching them in the future to have to go into the thread to talk about a non-premium cable show. But I kind of love white font discussion of shows that don't fit into established threads in Natter. It makes it so much easier to stay unspoiled for shows I want to see eventually and easier to skip over discussion of shows that I don't care about.

I'm not proposing that we should include FX shows in Premium at the exclusion of discussion of those shows in Natter or wherever people do talk about them. I am only asking that we have the freedom to discuss them there without policing the discussion.

Now I'm confused. You want to have discussions on the same shows in two different threads?

Sure. Why not? The people who talk about it in Natter can talk about it in Natter. The people who want to talk about it in Premium can talk about it in Premium.

And it's not like we don't all skip over show discussion of shows we don't watch or don't want to be spoiled for all the time.

I'm definitely seeing a pattern here of people who want to be able to discuss shows without having to wade through Natter (and possibly also whitefont) vs. people who want Natter to encompass everything including TV discussions.

Is the dreaded general TV thread, only non-NAFDA (that is, with Natter white font rules), a possible compromise. It obviously won't work for the white font haters, but I don't think there's ever going to be a solution that satisfies everyone, but maybe we have start comptemplating something or this discussion is just going to keep burbling up every few months.

I keep up in Natter just barely, and to the point where I feel like that all I do is keep up, and, more often than not, the TV discussions I'd be part of have gone way by and anything I'd add would probably get lost in the white noise.

It's not, which is why it's being brought up here instead of simply in-thread.

Sorry, I was responding to this:

I think this minor adjustment to a thread's slug doesn't warrant a full-on lightbulb consensus. Or rather, I don't want to make this a discussion about our big Plans and Goals for the board. I just want to talk about shows that are thematically similar in the same place, and there are grounds enough to do so based on the agreement of the people who frequent the thread, the same genre constraints we place on Boxed Set, and the fact that this won't negatively impact the rest of the board discussion.

I don't think simple agreement within the thread should be sufficient, and I don't understand how the genre constraints would apply. So I disagree that there are sufficient grounds to make the change via consensus. (I can't really speak to the negative impact part, since now I share Jon's confusion.)

And I don't think a thread purpose should be based on "Well, these are the same people I discuss some TV with, why not other TV that I think is similar."

I think a thread's purpose is to foster lively discussion. So...I value that over bright lines. I'm not sure what the bright lines are really doing. Except I guess the bright line that lumps things together more or less by who can watch what when and where. So Premium Cable does have an element of "you're in or you're out or you're watching it on DVD."

I'm to the point where I'd rather we rethink how we handle the TV threads. We've seen them long enough to know a few things by now in the post Buffy/Angel era. We know that when you have 3-5 shows in one thread that it tends to have a useful cross fertilizing effect (unless the shows are scheduled right on top of each other and are widely popular - then you get too much noise and too little signal. Which, it must be noted, can't be stopped.) We also know that casual discussion of shows can occur in Natter, but it's difficult to maintain an in depth discussion there.

For me, show threads are a strong necessary stimulant to the whole community. I'm willing to bend a lot of ways to foster discussion.

But at this point I'd like to see some different approaches instead of rehashing the same arguments. Though maybe the old arguments are just a necessary brake on thread proliferation. Sort of a formality that keeps us from running buck wild with threads which whither on the vine.

But how damaging is that anyway? What's the cost when we create threads that don't take off?

I'd like to see some different approaches instead of rehashing the same arguments

Does anyone have a different approach they've been keeping mum about?

Well, our options are what?

• One TV thread, blackfont
• One TV thread, whitefont
• One TV thread, some combination of blackfont and whitefont (like Movies)
• Multiple TV threads grouped by genre
• Multiple TV threads grouped by some other logical organizing principle
• Multiple TV threads grouped by...day of the week
• Individual threads for more shows

I don't have premium tv and I don't watch the shows on FX that are being discussed there. And yet I still have comments, go figure.

I read the whitefont in Natter for shows I don't watch. The discussion has convinced me to give new shows a try. The shows that have their own threads still have some discussion in Natter and that adds to the richness of Natter. 24 is mentioned in Boxed Set. Heroes is discussed in Lost. Our lines have some bendiness.

Adding non premium shows to the premium thread seems more than bendy to me, but since I have never been in the thread it may be logic making.

In summary, whatever works for y'all.