The topics come up in various places and get dealt with, but having one concentrated area of potential controversy makes me nervous.

It's the topics popping up all over the place in Natter that I like so much. I may not have woken up wanting to discuss mating habits of Australian mammals, but I think it's nifty when that's what ends up happening.

I also like discussing politics in natter becasue it seems that people less interested, or not arguing act as a buffer.

having one concentrated area of potential controversy

Am I the only one who flashed to the ending of Time Bandits with the 'concentrated evil' that looked like an incinersted pot roast that made people explode when they touched it while reading that phrase? And seeing similar things (i.e. exploding Buffistas) becasue of it? Or am I merely insane?

To the best of my knowledge, no one has suggested that. We've always said we don't want to be too specific.

I was afraid Gar was leaning in that direction.

I'm going to go flutter off into a ball of twinkling, shimmering unnecessariness. That's not a word, either.

I agree that there probably shouldn't be a politics thread. Wrod. The only pro I can see to having one would be, if a political conversation started to crop up where people were uncomfortable talking about such, the people that want to talk about it could be directed to some place it was safe to talk about. That doesn't sound like it's a problem here, though.

I think we should have a "Powederkeg" thread, lined with explosives, computer virus broadcasters and bitter, drunk mimes. I think it would add some spice.

Am I the only one who flashed to the ending of Time Bandits with the 'concentrated evil' that looked like an incinerated pot roast that made people explode when they touched it while reading that phrase? Or am I merely insane?

No, I thought it, too. NOW GIVE ME THE MAP!!!

That's very scary Dar... That someone else has that kind of brain...

And FWIW...

No politics thread (see above... Exploding Buffistas is not a 'Good Thing')

Music or Movie thread - Ambivalent. Have a hard enough time trying to keep up as it is...

Ceneral discipline policied - Very much like the idea of the accused being directed to a discussion of them to be able to mount a defence.

No further elaboration, as it has all been said many times in previous posts. That is all. Until next time, anyway. And maybe not until then. Or maybe after that.

From a practical administic standpoint, I'm against threadspread.

Lord knows we've almost too many as it is.

And I do think, and this also comes from over a decade online, that threadspread thins community. Right now, there are plenty of people who crossover into all the threads (I'm in everything but Farscape and the Canada thread, for example) and provide connections. The more threads, the more detached we get.

If someone starts talking about movies in Natter, and there are 300 posts before you can respond, some or none of which are about that topic, it's hard (at least for me) to feel comfortable participating.

That's why meara was born, so she could come hear and teach us her ways.

I will probably always vote against proliferation, because I'll see less of people, but if that's what the people want, that's why it's put to a discussion. I can't make all the people have all the interesting conversations where I have time to see them.

Well, not until the next release of the software, anyway.

I have a forum at WX where I made it so anyone could add threads, because I was never sure I'd be there at a rollover. And there have been maybe 2 threads created (not counting iterations of existing ones). It's not "every freaking" place that is freewheeling. Everywhere *isn't* the same, and if it were, why leave home?