Odd. I just got email from my brother - who is apparently on his way to Mongolia on Sunday. Maybe he can scout out hotels for those of us who don't care for yurts.

ita, I had this big long response, but basically it consisted of me pointing out where you're arguing with things I never said and didn't (mean to) imply.

My assumption?
Someone was going to propose a general TV thread, or a bunch of category based TV threads.

Basis for my assumption?
The discussion in Betsy's thread.

Underlying reason for posting the intial invitation to discussion?
I don't think those kind of threads will work for us, so it seemed better to focus the conversation so that we could find out if we even wanted any kind of tv thread, or not.

I never said we were TV centric. I never said TV has something to do with every thread we've posted. It seems to me in reviewing this whole conversation, that many of the things you've tagged as my assumptions, weren't either stated or implied by me. As I'm good with Liese's POV, there's no sense in continuing to push my initial suggestion. It was only made, because I was concerned we'd be looking at the general tv thing again, and since that doesn't suit so many, it seemed more sensible to find out just what exactly does.

I'll tell you though, when I first broached this subject, I was concerned by the need to have to justify inviting the discussion. It felt like topic moderation on a topic that is least generally related to our board, and to the description of this thread:

A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.

And while I expect any number of people not to be interested in any given conversation, it's another thing entirely to be told a discussion doesn't belong here, when it is related to the stated purpose of the thread.

I heart what ita said here: ita "Bureaucracy 3: Oh, so now you want to be part of the SOLUTION?" May 26, 2004 11:00:00 am PDT . We're not broken, and I'm much more comfortable letting things evolve naturally at this point. There's a danger of becoming too concerned with the meta of this place at the expense of just enjoying ourselves.

I don't think we're broken, either.

Someone was going to propose a general TV thread, or a bunch of category based TV threads.

Well, there you go. I didn't think that was necessarily going to get off the ground, and that if it did ... that discussion would be part of the proposal discussion.

I still don't see the reason for the discussion you had wanted to have, then.

But it's moot now.

Also, just because ita (or anyone else) doesn't see the purpose behind a discussion doesn't mean it's not necessary or worth pursuing.

just because ita (or anyone else) doesn't see the purpose behind a discussion doesn't mean it's not necessary or worth pursuing.

WHATTHEHELL?

When did this happen?

There's a danger of becoming too concerned with the meta of this place at the expense of just enjoying ourselves.

What MFN said.

WHATTHEHELL?

When did this happen?

There's no reason to get into it.

There's no reason to get into it.

::discontinues topic::

See how good that feels?

Hmmm. Just read a lot of this thread. I have some thoughts.

I'm sort of a newbie here, but I'm totally captured by the buffista love, and intend to continue hanging out here, reading and occasionally posting in Natter, The Great Write Way, sometimes Movies, sometimes Fic, sometimes Minearverse, sometimes Bitches for a very long time. I don't think that we necessarily need to add new threads to maintain the community here.

The community will maintain itself, because it seems to have a sense of feeling all its own. For example, Polter-Cow joined only a little bit before I did, not very long ago at all, and yet he already seems to be a Buffista-in-good-standing just because of the way he sounds, writes, thinks, and behaves. He gets along with the people here, and I doubt he will disappear anytime soon, even if eventually all that's left is Natter. I've seen others that are clearly not Buffistas at heart - they make a few posts in a thread, testing out the waters, and either annoy and get annoyed right back by the community here or they lose interest because, being a community, we're not very focused. We are not purely a discussion forum, strictly business: we are a community, and, as a community, we will maintain ourselves. New members will find us by accident, but until they do, we can live without.

That said, I do like analyzing television shows. Well, certain television shows. Specifically (not that the example is important), I've been a big fan lately of analyzing Joan of Arcadia, due to my possibly unhealthy fascination with Protestant Christian theology. The thing is, having seen the way people in this community treat each other and discuss things, and the ease in which they do it in the format of this particular board (single threads, no sub-categories, very simple), I'm spoiled for that kind of discussion. I don't want to go discuss Joan at televisionwithoutpity or tvtome or t insert-any-other-board-here , where far too many people seem to have their brains turned off, most comments are of the JoanNAdam4Ever!!! type, and posting is a difficult task, because that frustrates me. And I know a perfectly good community of people who could probably provide me with excellent JoA commentary in the right situations: the buffistas. I hoped that Cindy's LiveJournal community would provide a replacement for a thread here, but I've discovered that LJ just isn't a good forum for discussion, not nearly as good as here, and not as much gets done as I would like.

I guess I'm leading to a question, here: how many interested Buffistas are enough Buffistas to make a new thread worthwhile? If ten commonly posting buffistas are interested in discussing Joan of Arcadia, even if that means each of them will post only once or twice a week in the thread for each new episode, so the thread gets 10-20 new posts a week, is that enough? If not, what makes it not worth it? What drawbacks does adding a thread have?

I can see a few possible such drawbacks. 1) Attracts people to the board googling "Joan of Arcadia discussion," or whatever, making possibly lots of new members who may change the community feel through their presence. 2) Makes the home page hard to read (though subscriptions+message center help a lot). 3) Technical issues, bandwidth, server power, and whatnot. 4) People who only enter post in the discussion boards, splintering the community.

Which of these are we worried about? And why?

Who maintains the list of Buffista mailing addresses? 'Cuz they need my new work address.