Just to be clear. I'm not completely anti bucket thread. I just can't handle large buckets. My value for large seems to be greater than four.

4 shows? or 4 buckets?

Four shows in a bucket.

If we have a bucket thread are we any less a general TV forum? Why is that making the difference?

If the argument is that being too splintered is not good for the community, then the bucket threads bring larger groups together and allow for some cross pollination. The notion may be that bucket threads foster community more than individual threads?

Box Set works kind of like that. But I think an Office thread could do the same thing.

The Veronica Mars thread was pretty active and engaged for the first two seasons.

If the argument is that being too splintered is not good for the community, then the bucket threads bring larger groups together and allow for some cross pollination. The notion may be that bucket threads foster community more than individual threads?

While I understand that this may be the intention of the bucket threads, it also does the reverse for those of us who are not able to keep up with the larger bucket threads. Instead of fostering community, we are left out of that aspect of the community. This isn't meant to be argumentative, I'm just trying to point out the other side of this coin.

I thought that the reasons against single show threads were:
1. We're not a general tv forum and

I don't know how we're not a tv forum.

I don't understand your position, sumi. You said that "we're not a general TV forum" is a reason to not have single show threads, but then you say we are a TV forum.

If the argument is that being too splintered is not good for the community, then the bucket threads bring larger groups together and allow for some cross pollination.

Different point, and I don't want the question I'm asking to be confused with that.

We may want to consider buckets for specific types of shows only--ones they work as a locus for discussion. I think bucket threads work quite well for non plot-arc-y shows--I am thinking of Reality or Non-fiction in particular. In the case of reality competition shows, like Top Chef, people tend to watch them as they happen as it is hard not to be spoiled if you wait, and half of the fun is in sussing out what happens next. Non-fiction shows can't really be be spoiled, per se. I mean, CAN one be spoiled for Dirty Jobs or Alton Brown? I think there was more, and smarter, discussion of both those types of shows in their respective buckets.

Fiction shows which are all about arc are an entirely different thing to my mind.

ita, I read sumi's first statement not as her opinion, but as a restatement of one of the reasons not to have single show threads -- that is raised frequently, when we have this TV conversation.

Ah. I thought she didn't want them either.

No, I want the bucket threads and I want individual show threads where it makes sense but I get that as a group we choose not to make threads willy-nilly as things come up and then just have to delete them later.