That's the point of the voting system, though, isn't it? To affirm, deny, or refine. Right now we're refining. I don't think it's out of the realm of our procedure.

For the record, the procedural thread I was suggesting was meant to be both cop and medico. Any kind of mystery of the week type thing,

For the record, the procedural thread I was suggesting was meant to be both cop and medico. Any kind of mystery of the week type thing,

I like that. I also think that a comedy thread would probably pass without any restrictions on what specific shows go there.

SA, trying or not, if you get the seconds you need to discuss a "quirky drama" thread, it is circumventing board voting policy. I'm not implying it. I'm stating it.

I agree with Kat. "Quirky" is too broad. In my opinion, the only dramas that get discussed here are the quirky ones. Anything that's not quirky is boring and doesn't generate much interest.

I have a weird devotion to L&O:CI.

I have the same weird devotion, le nub.

Well, we appear to be looking for a bucket definition that is narrow enough that people won't feel spoiled by entering it.

The only sure way to do that is a bucket one show wide. If we went with Procedurals, for example, we'd have 15 shows, give or take a few outliers like House. There were three procedurals with 10 or more viewers in the poll: Numb3rs, CSI and Bones. I can't think of any reasonable way to subdivide the 15, and with 15, some people are bound to be spoiled. It could be "Shows Likely to Include Maggots," which would cover the 3 CSIs, Bones and only occasionally the others, or "Shows that Depict an Entirely Fictional FBI," including WaT, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds and Bones.

Is there still a solid proposal in play? If so, I second it.

is it that term that bothers you or any kind of thread involving any kind of drama(s) that bugs you?

The fact that drama has already been voted down and is being reproposed with an ambiguous modifier is what bugs me.

I have no qualms about a medical procedural or a legal procedural or a comedy because those are clearer definitions that have greater specifity and differentation from a general drama thread. They aren't just a generic drama thread that was already voted down.

That's the point of the voting system, though, isn't it? To affirm, deny, or refine.

Not refine. If it were to refine, then there would not be a 6 month moritorium. It's really to affirm or deny then shut up on the topic for 6 months, which is sort of the oppposite of the refining thing that is going on.

I disagree with you, Kat. Largely, but not exclusively, because of what Denise said:

We didn't get it right the first time. Maybe we won't get it right the second time. But, if we eventually do get it right, does it really matter how many votes it took us to get there?

And I wanted to address this:

I have to say the define/redefine drama into a genre to get a thread that will pass immediately after it being voted down is grating. It would be easy to interpret it as, "I don't like the way the votes went. I want my thread."

That is very much not what I'm doing. I think Jesse said upthread that the point of the voting system was to put things out to the community and see if the community agrees with you or not. That's all I'm doing here. It's not some agenda about having the "thread I want." It's another, in what at this point is a series of attempts, to offer the board a solution to what has been a noted problem. If it fails, that's fine. Someone else will come up with something different.

If you define it as a catchall for anything not a procedural or even as something "quirky" it's too broad and general and it ends up being what was voted down.

I was responding in one sense to ita's note about Boxed Set being for the sci-fi and fantasy shows we watch. If we filter down the shows through the threads we already have along with the a comedy and procedurals thread, we're left with "the other primetime network television that we watch." Surely *that's* not too broad. If it's good enough for Boxed Set, why isn't it good enough for this?

I would also add, as a goal, to find thread categories that will mean that future shows will, as a rule, have an obvious home

This is important to me too.

But your second time for a Drama thread can't be discussed for 6 months. According to our rules. So yeah. Bring it up again 6 months to the day it was voted down. But until then, if you want a generic drama thread, quirky or not, you have to wait until then.

Or if you are insistent that you want to vote on it sooner rather than later, propose changing the voting rules to allow you to discuss before the 6-month period is over.

I think the moritorium would only apply to a proposal for a thread that would encompass all of Network Drama. Any further division seems to me to be a different concept and a different proposal. Any further reshuffling after that would be different proposals. To try to say now that this is against the rules seems unfair to me. Maybe people would have voted differently on the Network Drama thread proposal if they had known that future proposals for different smaller buckets wouldn't be okay.