Would someone please explain why we need to specify "drama"? Why not "Original Cable Programming"?

The ballot was very specific:

Question One - Should we have dedicated threadspace for (non-premium) original cable drama?

IIRC, in the past, Venture Brothers has been discussed in the Other Media thread.

Monk and Psych are hour-long shows.

So drama can be somewhat elastic, and we can certainly take shows up as they come and discuss them where they fit most naturally. But keeping the lines, if not sharp, at least visible, is important to a lot of us because it builds better discussion.

Yes indeedy. Psych and Monk to me have the narrative structure of dramas, and they are dramas that happen to be funny, not unlike Ugly Betty. Whereas The Office, for example, is a comedy the happens to be dramatic. Go figure. Anyway, get the thread opened, and if it doesn't work in Drama than if we get a Comedy thread it can go in there.

Slug: Discussions of original cable dramas we watch, that don't fit into the Boxed-Set or Premium Cable threads. NAFDA.

I'd rather: Slug: Thread for the discussion of original cable drama. Psychics, detectives, surgeons, and firemen welcome. NAFDA.

and:

Header: Thread for original cable dramas, including but not limited to TNT, USA, TBS, and F/X. Talk about shows that aren't discussed in Boxed Set (Sci-Fi Channel, The Dead Zone) or Premium Cable (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax) are discussed here (Psych, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, The Riches, The Shield, Monk, etc). This thread is NAFDA.

SA, those are pretty good. I was tossing something out to get the ball rolling, and don't actually watch any original cable dramas that don't fit into Boxed Set, so I didn't know what to say about them.

Can you come up with a way to let people know in the slug that the thread isn't for discussion of shows that might go in Boxed Set or Premium? I see you've done so in the header, but there's an overlapping grey zone for the three threads, and since we don't want someone to get accidentally spoiled for shows they didn't expect to see in a certain thread, I think we need to be more careful.

Talk about shows that aren't discussed in Boxed Set (Sci-Fi Channel, The Dead Zone)

This summary of Boxed Set doesn't quite work for me, because it differs from Boxed Set's definition of Boxed Set (which per its header is 'genre', and in that context 'genre' means sci-fi/fantasy).

Yeah, that's not a definition of Boxed Set at all. I know there's a lot of disagreement of what 'genre' means in that context, but I'd like to think that sf/fantasy is pretty clear.

What ita said. Though actually, it wouldn't have occured to me to include Bionic Woman in that.

I was working more from a definition of Boxed Set as "place cable shows that are discussed, but different shows from the ones that will be talked about here" to indicate its differenceness, not its genreness. If that makes sense.

Slug: Thread for the discussion of original cable drama--but not scifi/fantasy (that's Boxed Set!) or pay-to-play (that's Premium Cable!). Psychics, detectives, surgeons, and firemen welcome. NAFDA.

Header: Thread for original cable dramas, including but not limited to TNT, USA, TBS, and F/X. Talk about shows that aren't discussed in Boxed Set (The Dead Zone, Stargates, The 4400) or Premium Cable (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax) are discussed here (Psych, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, The Riches, The Shield, Monk, etc). This thread is NAFDA.

Would it include BBC-A?

Your header makes it look like the Boxed Set oeuvre is restricted to the shows listed. I think putting the genre in and a list ending in etc of some of the shows therein is better representation.

Putting Psych and Monk in the topic headers seems to predetermine that they'll go in the Cable Drama threads. I thought people were discussing letting them find their own home.

And yes, I'm being stubborn because I still don't see them as dramas.