I really want to hear more about this.

The lack of TV talk I can participate in bothers me, which is of course personal to me, and not anyone else's issue, but it does color how I view the rest of it. I feel like having so many different TV oriented threads with rules about what is supposed to be discussed where and potentially different rules about whitefont in each of them creates a rigidity that wasn't here before, and which I for one don't like. I don't like that we are essentially segregating TV talk to particular threads, and even further separating them by type of show. I think the absence of TV in Natter makes it more somber than it used to be, because of the absence of squee/groaning about shows.

Most of all though,

That said, it did seem like there was more tv talk creeping back into Natter before the experimentals closed, which I saw as a good sign that people were starting to feel comfortable talking where they wanted, and that shooing had pretty much gone away.

I hope the first part is true, though I am not so sure it is. In any case, the fact that we created threads and operated them in ways where people ever weren't comfortable talking about TV in Natter bothers me. A lot.

Just to chime in with Lee and Kat, although it seems like things are kinda a done deal here, I found the experimentals a big dud from my POV. I missed the tv talk in Natter, and found my viewing schedule effectively locked me out of trying to follow the discussion in the experimentals. I don't think that a thread covering all network Drama or Comedy or whatever actually helps to generate more sustained discussion. It just moves it out of Natter, which isn't a plus IMO.

I'm sorry that it disrupts your sense of the board and the community, Lee.

But, for myself, I felt just as excluded by miles of whitefont in Natter. It's not anything I ever participated in, and I could never hold a conversation in that environment. And it just made Natter a no-fly zone for me until that was over.

Which is fine, Natter can be whatever it wants to be in any particular moment. But there's a flipside to what you preferred.

Which is fine, Natter can be whatever it wants to be in any particular moment.

But that's part of my point. Natter wasn't being whatever it wanted to be, really, because some people weren't comfortable discussing their shows there even though they wanted to.

belated eta (because it took me a while to figure out how to say this in a way that might make sense outside my head)

But, for myself, I felt just as excluded by miles of whitefont in Natter. It's not anything I ever participated in, and I could never hold a conversation in that environment. And it just made Natter a no-fly zone for me until that was over.

I get what you are saying here, and I know Natter and the board can't ever be all things to all people, but to me, there is a difference between situations in which people don't post in Natter for a little while because of the flow of the discussion at that moment and situations in which people don't post something at all because they feel that having the discussion in Natter is against the rules.

I don't mean to be negative, but it seems like that ship has kind of sailed.

Why? I mean, why is that ship any more undockable than any other?

Number me amongst the "can't stop the fire" people. It shifts the board from somewhere I couldn't have detailed show discussion to somewhere I can't have either that or much of the fun casual sort either.

It wasn't perfect for me before. It just looks to be more broken with the changes proposed.

Okay, I know I've done a bad thing here, but I've skipped right to the end to see what's being proposed -- and I don't understand the proposal. I will, of course, go back and read things but if it goes for voting there might be more stupid people like me who can't figure out what's going on.

Sorry, folks, I went to bed last night.

The proposal I made was for the creation of a non-fiction thread. I'm going to wait until the voting has gone through on that to propose the premium/cable setup.

I get what you are saying here, and I know Natter and the board can't ever be all things to all people, but to me, there is a difference between situations in which people don't post in Natter for a little while because of the flow of the discussion at that moment and situations in which people don't post something at all because they feel that having the discussion in Natter is against the rules.

I do hate people felt like they couldn't talk TV in Natter. It was made explicit in the experimental proposal that they could, and whoever it was that was trying to nanny the talk out of Natter should have been nannied, him/herself. That was pretty much a user error, not a fault of the proposal itself. Someone should have noticed and should have spoken up (I'm pointing that finger at me, too).

I always felt excluded from the TV talk in Natter, because I was seldom around when it happened, and when it did happen, it didn't seem to involve shows I watch and/or want to talk about. And when I tried to start my own TV talk in Natter, it usually only garnered a response or two.

I found discussion much more sustainable in the TV threads. My preference is single show threads for the most part, but I do think there are shows (particularly half-hour shows) that would do well in buckets, and I am not afraid of being spoiled in bucket threads for other shows. Bucket threads aren't my favorite, but they're still better than Natter for me.

Hey, do we need to open Lightbulbs now, with four seconds to the original proposal?

I don't know how I feel about the experimentals. They were not a homerun for me. The conversations that I had in those threads were very much like the conversation I have had in Natter about TV - possibly with different participants and about different shows, but the feel was the same. As a spoilerphobe who timeshifts, it was hard for me to remember what threads I could go into when, and skimming past whitefont in Natter is what I'm used to, so it seems simpler.

I never got completely comfortable in the experimental threads. That may be a byproduct of only having them open for a month, I don't know, but the change that they represent doesn't feel accomplished to me - they are still sort of a novelty act and I don't know how keeping them would ultimately shake out. I don't think the ship has sailed on changing the board culture - we are clambering around the masts and testing out the rudders and sails but they ship is still in the harbor and may not have even lifted anchor, as far as I'm concerned.