Upon reflection, I think I'd vote for a Music Thread and a Movies Thread - simply because there is no way I can keep up with Natter.

Can I just suggest that you'll never catch up in Natter? It's like road systems -- widen the roads, and the traffic will expand to fill the space.

When the Natter thread was introduced, everyone just posted more.

I like the idea of a few topic-specific threads. There will always be book, movie, and music natter in the main Natter thread, but it's nice to be able to jump into a distilled discussion of things or know that a question is less likely to be lost in the rush of Natter.

I'd just like to mention, as someone who can't keep up with Natter, that I like the idea of smaller "category" threads. I can keep up with Literary amd TTT. I personally wouldn't read the music thread, but I would love to have a general Movies thread (not that I mean to start a debate on that topic). I waded briefly into Natter to see what the reactions, if any, were to Chicago and I found that a bit of a pain.

I like to know Buffista opinions on various topics, because I've come to trust them (though I don't always agree with them) as being well reasoned and expressed. I just wish it weren't always so much work.

I don't post often in Literary but I think it's a pretty good balance of all types of books.

Maybe we need to change the slug to indicate that isn't for Literature.

I am with Hec about a music thread, I've poked around the People's Forum music thread before, and they seem like nice people, but I'm not that into music and I can't follow most of what's being said.

Okay -- here's my selfish opinion. I find it hard to keep up with splinter thread. So I don't discuss Due South so much anymore, or Smallville, or even books. TTT -- well, it's an obsession. But things like music or movies which are more like interests?

Would then drop off my radar.

I think that it is much more sensible to have a movie thread, than to have a thread for one movie, as we've done with TTT (not that I'd don't like that, oh no, I love it). And in the context of calls for a movie thread, a music thread is very much more sensible.

I also appreciate the not keeping up with Natter issue.

If we had a music thread, I'd have an appropriate place to express my adoration of Hec for knowing who Ranch Romance are. I'd love a place to hang out with fater, in hopes that some of that coolness would rub off, even a little bit, on me.

OTOH, I can't even keep up in COMM these days.

I've been slogging through the old Bureaucracy posts about the recent unpleasantness - I feel it's my duty somehow, as a citizen here. I'm really proud of the way it all was handled. And I totally support the vague standards. It's true that there's no way to predict anti-social behavior. I'm also amazed and gratified by the way Buffistas are able to express their feelings about this, and about things in general. I aspire to your eloquence.

Can I just suggest that you'll never catch up in Natter?

My bad - I didn't mean to imply that introducing new threads would have any impact upon the size of Natter. Just that I might stand a chance of following and participating in a movie-centric conversation in a Movie thread, whereas the chances of me spotting such a convesation in Natter, let alone participating, are tiny. And I'm quite fond of movies, so that would be cool. (About Music I'm stunningly ignorant, and would probably not participate much.)

Maybe we need to change the slug to indicate that isn't for Literature.

Okay, a violent, violent NO from Camp Fay. Literature is books. It's writing. It's not "Literary Fiction", which is a specific genre and a class-issue and all kinds of shit like that. It's books. Literature=books. Not "Posh" books, or "Worthy" books or any of that shit. Books.

Ah. I appear to have another hair trigger. Stepping carefully off the soap box. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Re: ita's point - damn. Okay, I see where she's coming from. I don't want to make anyone's experience of the boards less positive.

Bugger.

I think it is a priority thing-- I am the opposite of ita-- I find it hard to keep up with natter-- I can't catch up fast enough and if I skip to the end, I am lost and feel a bit like I am butting in on everyone's conversations. I keep up in the small threads because I can.