Not that I've ever really need a reason

One of the many reasons I love you.

Also, despite David's protestations that we weren't ready to hash this all out back in 2004, I think the realization that we've already been having this discussion for three years has just disabused me of any notion that we're going to finally settle this once and for all. I'm starting to think it's our favorite subject.

Still, willing to give it a go.

Oh the wheels of the board go round and round, round and round, round and round.

You know what I want to do some day? A lurker survey. I am so unbelievably curious about the whys and wherefores of our lurkers! Purely for fun.

And on topic, I like the idea of a poll. I'm not sure whether it will end up being all that practically useful, but again, I have the curiosity. Oh! Can we have a ticky box for "I am a lurker" "I am a poster"? It'd just be interesting to see how many lurkers are interested enough to do the survey. Or does that just make the phrasing for the rest of the poll more complicated? Eh. Either way. Just a thought.

But they're lurkers -- would they respond?

I dunno - but maybe with the anonymity they would. I might, were I a lurker. I wish I could ask them. You see the problem...

Let's avoid suburban sprawl.

eta: Which I realize now is not a bad metaphor. There are things which come from urban density that are lost when you let every subdivision just eat up the orange groves. What makes the most vital community for us?

This is a good analogy. I see people wanting their own houses on their own plots of land where they have everything they want-- everything at the right shade of whitefont, traffic slow enough for kids, only the things you want to discuss and nothing more. When that happens here I am outta here.

I am very frustrated. Polling is just our latest attempt to rush headlong into a new solution (see also: experimental threads). This is going to turn out badly, said Cassandra.

I don't get that, bon. I don't see how the polls are pushing any solution. I understand out this headlong rush could be seen as a side effect of the experimentals, but not the polls. Could you explain?

I don't see polling as a negative. It just gives us information we usually have to go through votes to get.

It's not binding. I really don't think I've got a picture of what our collective interests are. I'm disinterested in another vote about what individuals want, and am very curious about what we as a community want.

I'm not living or dying on any of these thread votes. But I'm willing to compromise a lot to keep the core vital.

Which I guess is something I need to articulate as an important community value from my perspective. I'm not necessarily interested in accommodating everybody or avoiding all frictions - I don't think that's possible. But if the community is lively/vital then it will deal with the changes. As long as people are invested they'll keep working on stuff even if they don't get what they want.

In the past I've felt that the lifeblood of the community is lively discussion so I've been pro-thread. Create places which foster discussion.

But I'm questioning that approach now. What if there is too much dilution? What if need to maintain a tighter focus to foster that vitality?

But I'm questioning that approach now. What if there is too much dilution? What if need to maintain a tighter focus to foster that vitality?

I think this is true, and there's no way in which polling will lead to that.

I don't expect us not to do a poll. I probably sound totally nuts right now. I'm not, though. This is an opportunity to put together a list of wants that gets us on our way to creating threads to fill perceived needs. In the process of getting everyone that perfect thread they want we will destroy what we have now.

Do we need to poll about frequency? We can tell which threads get the most posting traffic by looking at them. Is any of this data you're seeking anything we can pull from site stats?