Oh dear and fluffy lord. What?

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I'm such an idiot.

Can I please turn back time?

I swear I reread the post a hundred times to make sure I was being totally honest.

But I didn't think about WHETHER I should post it.

How long have I been using the internets? Seriously?

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and if online buzz means nothing, somebody needs to tell that industry.

People have, and continue to. I have never seen a single study or investigative news report that showing that online buzz measures anything but the level of online buzz. By every measurement I've ever seen, it's as meaningless for television as it is for politics.

It doesn't affect marketing budgets because marketing departments are run by upper middle management types who like things that are shiny and new. The internet is very shiny and new, doesn't mean it's effective. I love the internet, but I don't kid myself that we're not a niche audience were mass media is concerned.

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Allyson, I'm not going anywhere near your subject matter, because that's not the point.

You are thread mommying too. You don't like what Kevin says, then argue the points. There's no room left over for discourse, though, considering the amount of anger you're posting with.

Your wish for a playful thread is being sabotaged by your own posting. Not to mention the community standard of civility.

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You know, ita. I hit post. And wanted to delete for the very reasons stating with regard to civility, but that's totally bad form. For that, I apologize to Buffistas, and especially to Kevin.

I completely don't understand this:

You don't like what Kevin says, then argue the points.

Okay. Yes. Where's the issue in that?

You are thread mommying too.

I don't actually agree.

This could have been resolved with a MARCIE, and that's foolishness on my part, since I appear to be the only one grinding my teeth in irritation.

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i'm not grinding per se, Allyson. i do see and agree with your point that Kevin seems to suffer from self-aggrandizing his posts about Drive here in an effort to achieve BNF status. but like i said, no gnashing. just eyerolling and scrolling on by.

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Okay, I said to myself I wasn't to respond to Allyson's attempt at character -- er, poster -- assassination because it's both rude and misinformed, but to take one point on:

The BNF thing. Last year, I had to ask what a BNF was. Personally, I find the whole thing quite laughable and occasionally scary (and I did experience the strangeness of it with the drip drip of information from Serenity with Universal). With Drive fandom, I've changed to the name Kevin (about as generic as it gets), and barely post on Drive Fans. Bits of things I've posted in this topic have been drip dripped to me from FOX's marketing department. Some of those have then been mocked or whatnot for already being available.

I post them here -- FOX's Myspace, ifilm clips yada -- because they're about Drive. I figure people might like them. I have absolutely no desire to be a BNF. If I did, I'd be all gossi'ed up and all over the thing. I am a fan of Tim's work, and intend to stay that way. If people don't want me to post Drive things of interest, say so.

What I have noticed is, frankly, when people try to discuss Drive at the minute on this topic, it ain't workin'. There's either a barney about who's given credit to who for linking something, a disagreement about being negative etc. We could all do with sorting that out, as I'd like this to be a place where I can discuss the episodes as they air in comfort, something which I'm sure I'm not the only one who's fearful 'bout doing.

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What I have noticed is, frankly, when people try to discuss Drive at the minute on this topic, it ain't workin'. There's either a barney about who's given credit to who for linking something, a disagreement about being negative etc.

Kevin, please point the finger back at yourself regarding the 'barney' over credit. I believe you introduced that topic and spent quite a few posts talking here about someone on Wikipedia, and someone who was taking content from your blog, someone opening blogs with names similar to your blog's name, and someone spamming your blog or whatever. I scrolled past a good deal of the conversation, so I might have some of the details wrong.

Only after that, when you credited Jackal with compiling the list of writers from various sources around the 'net, did Monique politely mention that her site seemed to be the source. And, if I'm recalling correctly (I so cannot be arsed to scroll back), she only did that because the topic of not giving your site credit (a topic you had raised) was still fresh.

If you don't like discussions about crediting/not crediting sources -- don't raise them. And? Credit your sources -- particularly when you're pimping your own site at Buffistas.org and your own source is a longtime Buffista.

As for you and Allyson, I don't think we're supposed to really talk about the "Block" feature in regard to specific posters, but since I'm not sure how far that point of etiquette goes and I'm not trying to be mean about it, I'm going to risk breaching it and say that I do wish hope pray think the two of you should block each other for a while. Neither of you seem to use the scroll bar to get you past one another when you clash. Let technology help, at least for a little while.

And this...

Okay, I said to myself I wasn't to respond to Allyson's attempt at character -- er, poster -- assassination because it's both rude and misinformed, but to take one point on:

That does nothing to make anything better. The clever "character -- er, poster -- assassination," quip might score points at another board, but it won't here, nor will calling another of our longtime members either misinformed or rude.

You and Allyson may have just had the stupidest argument on record at buffistas.org that wasn't either intentionally funny or intentionally stupid. I mean, you started out by saying internet buzz wasn't always indicative of a show's success. Then, Allyson got all hot, telling you it was a fact that internet buzz wasn't important to a show's success. Then you argued against it. I mean really.

Finally, my friend Julie once talked about how we post here, and we liked what she said so well that we put it in the etiquette guide [link] Julie said:

This isn't a chat room. It's not even a particularly fast moving posting board. Partly, that's because I bet you dollars to doughnuts the vast majority of the people on this board spend a lot more of their time here reading, than writing. And partly that's because people here are aware that every bit of black text they put up on the screen, and every time they press post message, they are telling the community something about themselves. Most people want that to be a positive message.

If a thread isn't moving fast enough for you then you have two choices. You can leave it alone and not poke it. Or you can make a meaningful contribution that shows knowledge of your audience, is written in language and a style designed to elicit responses from your readers and that makes you accessible to the people with whom you seem to want to share your time.

There are no short cuts to fitting in. And when you're one of eight hundred registrations and a couple of hundred active posters? The onus is going to rest entirely in your lap.

It's good advice, and I'm going to take it right now. Um.

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I still haven't caught a Drive promo on TV. This is a bit sad-making. But it also makes sense, considering I watch about 4 hours of TV a week, 2 hours of that is on the CW, and i Tivo all of it and don't pay much attention to what I'm fast-forwarding.

Is there a good search term I could use on YouTube to get all the promos thus far?

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Gris, try Monique "The Minearverse 5: Closer to the Earth, Further from the Ax" Mar 27, 2007 1:35:51 pm PDT

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