I liked the non-fiction/reality thread a lot. The conversation was quick and light and fun, with a lot of cross-pollination. There are so many reality shows on now, and so many of us watch them, it seems sensible to me to create some variation of that thread.

I haven't been on the board for too long (well, hell, three years, I guess), so I'm not exactly sure why adding the more general TV threads is a change in culture. When I arrived, Buffy was over and Angel was in its final season, if I remember correctly, and it seemed to me that a lot of other TV was always discussed in Natter, and even in Bitches. As much as we read and shop and correct grammar and lust after corsets and debate cilantro or whatever, we are a heavily TV-addicted bunch, in my opinion. (And, also in my opinion, there's not a thing wrong with that.)

That said, my organizational side likes to keep things neat -- if I had my druthers, all drama would be in Drama, for instance, cable or not, with the possible exception of genre TV. I know that's not on the table here, and I don't intend to put it there, but aside from creating Day of the Week threads, I don't see anything aside from broadish categories such as Drama, Non-Fiction, and Comedy as a sensible demarcation point.

And *that* said, it seemed to me that the experimental threads got quite a bit of use. White font rules should be addressed again (although I was perfectly happy with them as created), because there's obviously some discontent there. And I think each possible new permanent thread should be proposed separately.

I think that we should not take into account (too much) the tivoing and rebroadcast of shows when deciding on threads. It's not fair to the people who have watched in real time to have to whitefont or wait for however long. Plus, it prevents a watch and post.

As for the bundling of the cable and the drama threads, I don't think that's a good idea. A lot of people don't get the pay channels, but Netflix or buy the DVDs. If you bundle the threads it makes it hard for people to do that.

I love all of the TV threads and am bereft without them! wah!

I think that the box on the left hand side for our published authors is a great idea and my "second" can be counted on.

Not sure where I stand yet, although I personally used Cable Drama and Comedy most. I want "Who Am I Kidding? I love to brag." for the new GWW name, when there is. Y'all just tell me what corner to stand on and I'll show up, ignorant opinions and all. Perhaps this is a Wirefiend inside joke but I'd be tickled by "Bureau XX: The Commander Likes the Dots." But probably three people in the world would think that was funny.

Ed Gein: Also, I sort of miss letting thread discussion kind of...morph, into whatever it was going to be. But that is easy for me to say, as I was one of the miscreants who crufted up the Movies thread with in-jokes, vulgarity and heng mai(crosses fingers) It was probably not as fun for all the people metaphorically stranded on the corner or at the Gem against their wills, though."Aw, man, it's frickin' Monday and they're doing it again..." I miss the *intimacy*(giggle, giggle) of former days. Although, I also appreciate the new level of focus. So. This post is probably useless

OK, leaving aside any possible thematic similarities (and I think there are a great deal in the shows that seem to get MOST discussed from both), there's also the fact that unlike most of the Network Drama shows (not all, certainly, but most), the cable and premium cable shows get broadcast multiple times during the week, so you don't even need to DVR or TIVO them when they are first broadcast, which leads to a far greater disparity in the viewing time for folks.

Yeah. Though I would stress again the thematics, as well as the audience, also contribute to my own wish to have Premium and Cable together.

I really, strongly disagree that they should be kept apart under the reasoning that, some point in the future, someone might purchase a Premium show and watch it. In the future. For those of us who have been using the experimentals over the last month, and Boxed Set and Movies before that, we learned to skip around the thread to read the shows we watched, or the shows we didn't get spoiled for. Addressing the whitefront policy might ease some of this. But I really don't think possible spoilers--for something that might be watched, feasibly, a year after it was originally aired--is a strong reason for not folding Cable into Premium. Particularly when the posting volume of both threads is so low that remaining unspoiled is pretty straightforward. The shows from Premium and Cable do not inspire watch and posts. They inspire, as someone noted above, more thought-out and robust discussion. I think that discussion dovetails very nicely together, and thus will propose myself that they are put together once we have drawn whatever conclusions we need to draw from this discussion.

I am also not sure what, exactly, we are meant to be doing here. Cindy proposed the experimentals with a view to collecting data, if I recalled correctly. And it's a month later, and I suppose we have what data we might feasibly need. But thus far in the discussion, of those who have participated in the discussion, it seems like the broad categories established work well enough for our purposes. We have a focused place to discuss television. We obviously are discussing that television with each other. More than once, in the threads, there were posts of "oh! I get to talk about x now!", which was pretty cool, to give a platform for that discussion.

I mean, what categories do we need, other than the ones we used before? The categories that were created in experiementals worked surprisingly well for what they were, and the issue as I see it seems to be the spoiler policy.

I think that, like it or not, the substantive change was made when we created the experimental threads. It was a try-out, but it was a try-out that, in my opinion, succeeded. And people have figured those threads out now--you know where to go to discuss x. It seems like a shame to take that away when it worked for our needs, such as they are. Particularly when we don't seem to have another category system, from previous discussion, that works as well or is as agreed upon. (For example, days of the week thread would be impossible, for the number of people who ahem or tivo. It is impossible for me to keep track of what network things are on, because my own television view is far, far removed from both a television and airing schedules.)

And in addition to that, I think that, just like Boxed Set, setting up bucket threads such as they are doesn't prohibit new, more specific threads for being created. If (ha!) Law and Order started taking over Network to the point that you couldn't sneeze without discussion of D'Onofrio, then someone proposes a L&O thread. If--though I don't think this is particularly likely--Network is taken over by people who only discuss House and Grey's Anatomy and the medical relevance of these shows, then you create a medical drama thread. There's no reason to think that the same threads used to collect data cannot *still* be used to collect data, by allowing discussion to wander as it does and the need for threads arise when they do. Why do we need (continued...)

( continues...) a permanent solution now?

And finally, I don't particularly want to spend the entire summer talking about this, because my summer has a handful of shows that will be airing that I will want to talk about. Just because we've gotten through sweeps, and the networks have gone to hibernate, doesn't mean there isn't television to watch or to talk about. Hell, even re-runs generate discussion. So I think that, in the interest of fostering that discussion, and taking in to account the general (if unintended) success of the threads, that creating threads along the lines of what was set up in Experimentals is not a bad idea at all. Particularly since I think we've already made the substantive change, even if we didn't mean for it to be so.

I really liked the experimental threads and would love for all of them to return in one way, shape, or form. I couldn't care less if cable drama is in premium or not. It seems to me that one reason to make this distinction is if premium or cable drama are each getting so much traffic that there might be a need to break the threads up.

So I come down on the traffic side, not necessarily the thematic side - but that is an important point as well.

I'm just so pleased I had the opportunity to engage in discussion with all of you in a variety of threads.

I would probably be the fourth 2nd, but I am holding it until more discussion takes place since that is an upthread request.

It seems to me that one reason to make this distinction is if premium or cable drama are each getting so much traffic that there might be a need to break the threads up.

Yeah, I guess to me it's more a question of justifying separate threads than anything. "I may one day buy it on DVD" is not the most compelling argument, I have to say (and I intend to one day buy lots of them on DVD).

But to get to specifics - there was whitefont in the experimental cable drama thread. Is there in Premium? I'm guessing not. What sort of whitefont arrangements would people want if we were to merge those two threads? Thoughts?