The thing is, Susan, I totally agree with you -- if even three (heck, *two*) people want a thread and it's not directly contrary to the mission of this board (e.g., libelious or illegal), let them have it. But it seems like what happens now is a thread is proposed, a small number of people who would post in it support it, and they're opposed by a larger number of people who dislike thread proliferation. The whole byzantine voting thing was my attempt at coming up with a neater way of creating threads. What other options do you see?

But it seems like what happens now is a thread is proposed, a small number of people support it, and they're opposed by a larger number of people who dislike thread proliferation.

But that's hardly been true at all in actual practice. What seriously proposed threads have we not started?

Off the top of my head? Movies, foamies, general TV, and Alias.

But it seems like I'm trying to change something a lot of you don't think needs changing. I'm stepping out of this discussion for now, cos I don't want to seem like a dead-horse-beater when really what I am is fascinated by process and community dynamics.

I think there should and will be a Foamies thread when the time comes, which I think is not quite yet. I think the general TV thread idea has only just been proposed, and you know most things take time to percolate around here. I did not know an Alias thread had been proposed. And I'll grant you the general movies thread.

I think that Movies and Politics are the only ones that have been shot down. And with politics, it was proposed, but very few people seemed to be actually interested in posting there.

My real objection to the voting process is that it maybe too rigid and not responsive to circumstance. Maybe we need to have a combination system. If we can't seem to reach a clear consensus on a new thread in a day, then it moves to a vote.

A Politics thread might have its fans, but I very rarely went into the Politics areas of TT. The arguments got a little strident there. I'd trust most of the Buffistas in a political argument in a F2F, but I'd rather not have an open-mike free-for-all here.

I like the idea of a politics thread, and like spoiler threads and mature themed threads you enter at your own "peril". If there's ever a clear, practical way to determine new threads I would vote for it.

A Politics thread might have its fans, but I very rarely went into the Politics areas of TT.

Hmm... this is interesting. So then, connie, do you see us as a replacement for TT?

do you see us as a replacement for TT

Inasmuch as we wanted a place on the Internet to talk to each other about Buffy/Angel/etc., yes. We may be reinventing Table Talk as we go, vis a vis fairly intelligent, sophisticated folk of like minds finding various topics to talk about. I have no problems with it, so long as the Stompies and the server are up to the work load. What makes the system work around here is we've got people who generously donate their time to herd us away from the cliffs and make sure we don't devolve into pointless bickering.

I think that, with the politics thread, it was mostly proposed by people who didn't want politics being discussed in natter. I haven't seen much call for a politics thread by the people who generally tend to discuss politics. (Personally, I'm against a politics thread, because I don't totally see how "politics" can be seperated from general discussions of news or whatever.)