I don't think (I may be wrong, though) that anyone's proposing new threads from an idea that they will decrease the volume of discourse in Natter, or from a sense of not wanting to hang out with the folks in Natter.

Had there been a general feeling of a Movie thread being a good thing, I'd have been pleased, because it's a thread in which I wouldn't anticipate there being as high a level of posting as Natter, and thus it's one I'd stand more of a chance of actually following and participating in on more than a surface level.

But this isn't a big deal to me, and I don't mean to imply that it is - I'm just trying to clarify the appeal of specific topic thread as I see it.

Is it not a community on forums where anyone can add a thread who feels like it? That is not my experience at all.

TT never felt like a community to me. It was too big. As for WX, only one or two *threads* feel community-like to me. Otherwise, it's just a forum. I *do* think Buffistas is different, at least now. If we just become an open forum, we will inevitably lose some of that sense of community.

I guess this conversation just bothers me because I have posted in the following forums:

Prodigy
Usenet
Table Talk
The Rant
The Perfect World
Ultimate Wedding
Livejournal
WorldCrossing

They all let whoever wanted to start a thread, with the exception of spam or duplicates (and, in the case of UW, censorship of anyone who wasn't sugar-sweet, but that's beside the point). And they all had a community at least as strong as the Buffistas.

Edit: Burrell, you're defining community differently than I am, I guess. I can understand that. I've equally felt like a part of something in all of those places. IME, it's about how much I post, not how many threads there are.

I was just going to quote part of fayJay's post, but I realize I could quote the whole thing. So What FayJay said.

What Burrell Said.

TT never felt like a community to me.

TOL became a community for me, but that was after a core group of halfway reasonable people, of all sorts of religious beliefs (including one Satanist) had found some common cause in beating back frequent drive-bys by fundies (for want of a better term) of various stripes. The siege mentality can work wonders.

TT was problematic, largely because the other places I posted were just too damn quiet.

fwiw, NewsUnlimited (and BooksUnlimited, FilmUnlimited et al) allows any registered poster to start a new thread.

But there's much more of a sense of community at Buffistas.org than there is over there.

(At least on the busier boards. BU and FU were fairly Buffista-like, actually, only with different agendas.)

I am not, however, advocating everyone starting threads. Even though I was for a music thread, and would be for a movies thread, I do think we probably have too many threads! I like that we talk about it.

This is probably the most traffic bureacracy has had in years!

I am not, however, advocating everyone starting threads.

I don't think there's a need for that step to be taken right now. But if it were implemented, I don't think it would tear the community apart or anything, is all I'm saying.

Burrell, you're defining community differently than I am, I guess. I can understand that. I've equally felt like a part of something in all of those places. IME, it's about how much I post, not how many threads there are.

For me, it's about who I am conversing with, not how much or how little I post. (Says the mega posty girl)

Okay, any other USians amused at the acronym FU? t /dork