I refuse to deny anybody the right to tell me to cram it.

Hey Sean - if your going to tell me that you refuse to deny my rights then SCREW YOU!!!

But don't let me tell you to cram it.

The one idea that spoke to me was msbelle's about a thread creation window. Create two windows a year and make whatever threads want to be made at that time, but only during those times.

I like the idea, but a sick part of me wants to find a way to turn it into a quickfire challenge.

Antiproliferationistas will hence forth be known as The Right-Handed Fork Brigade, and spoilerphobes shall be called The People Of The Spoon.

And the path to enlightenment is a long and difficult one, but someday we shall achieve nirvana Spork.

Each time a new thread is proposed the argument of left handed vs. right handed forks escalates until someone's feelings get hurt. Is there any way to avoid this?

And the path to enlightenment is a long and difficult one, but someday we shall achieve nirvana Spork.

What's a Spork? - Spydaddy

My favorite thing about b.org is how well everybody gets along. I hate it when that breaks down and I'm wishing there was a way to avoid it.

Zany humor is the best way I know how. Did you ever hear the story about how my butt is made out of cottage cheese?

does your butt go well with peaches?

Buffista A would be free to argue that the contents or purpose of the thread are not a good contextual fit within b.org. They simply could not argue that b.org should not add the thread because they are against adding threads on principle.

Is a truly terrible idea. I'll argue my points based on whatever principles I damn well please, thank you very much.

(I just got home from Eddie Izzard, or I would have addressed this earlier.)

Wolfram, your interpretation/extrapolation of my example is definitely NOT what I meant. What I mean, in plainer terms, is that some people are against new threads for reasons that have nothing to do with the thread topic. Laga's suggestion was that people could only debate the merits of the thread topic, and I was trying to point out that that doesn't work in this scenario.

Each time a new thread is proposed the argument of left handed vs. right handed forks escalates until someone's feelings get hurt. Is there any way to avoid this?

I don't mean to sound like a Bitter Old Buffista Islander(TM), but -- no. There isn't really any way to avoid it.

That's not meant to be snark; just observation from 8-ish years of these discussions.

Yes, but how was Eddie Izzard?

He was awesome when I saw him last Monday.

t /natter

I think the best we can do in these circumstances might be a gentleman's agreement to try and avoid the kind of "but let me explain my position again" thing that Nutty (?) brought up. I don't think we can legislate that, and certainly not through banning certain arguments or telling people to come up with side arguments about content when that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

Generally speaking, I'm in agreement with Sean that there's a fair bit of weeding that goes on before we ever get to the Lightbulbs point, and that's a good thing. If we think we need a structural fix for this, I'd rather work on that side of things than Lightbulbs. How do we make the vetting process tougher? More seconds for a new thread idea? Urging (but not mandating) that people think harder about flipping out seconds? Dunno.

I don't see how thresholds for creation/maintaining would work since threads are so different. But I haven't really thought it through, either. I'd love to see this discussion turn more to specifics (what thresholds, for what kind of threads, what open season period and how would it work, etc.) rather than trying to fix something that at bottom isn't fixable.