...continued

The Big Questions (in my mind)

1. What level of density do we need in Natter or Bitches to keep them vital?

2. Do various show threads maintain and increase density of discussion or do they bleed it off the center of the community?

3. How many threads can you have in relation to the number of posters we have before the discussion is too diffuse?

4. Do we need to have some kind of check on thread creation to garden/maintain the cultural center?

5. If we do need that check, what would it be? A limit on the number of threads? A more difficult threshold to create threads? (greater than a majority vote). I think that might be the easiest change for us to assimilate.

If we do come to a consensus that we're spread too thin and the effect is deleterious then the easiest brake would be to make it harder to create new threads.

le nubian, it may have been me who linked, and I had no intention to point to WX tv negatively.

I've been misinterpreted or misapprehended when I try to point out the difference between b.org and boards that are dedicated to single-show discussion. I don't think either is superior or inferior. I think they are different. I think they serve different needs. My concern was, and is, that people may be trying to recreate here something that already exists in a beautifully functional form elsewhere. What concerns me is that *if* that is the wish of the majority of active members of this board, that we make sure that's what is wanted *before* we go ripping out studs and wallboard. That we understand the difference, and comprehend what such changes would mean, and agree that this is the will of the majority.

My own opinions and desires I have tried dilligently to keep to myself, because in spite of them I am curious to see what the will of the majority actually is. I believe wholeheartedly, rather than continuing to grant or deny short-term desires for a particular show thread on a case-by-case basis, we need to decide if we want to be primarily a tv discussion board, or something else.

Ed. for sense-making.

My concern was, and is, that people may be trying to recreate something that already exists in a beautifully functional form, here.

and see, part of my concern is that people are trying to recreate something here (while not messing up other things, but we have yet as to know if that is possible) that already exists SOMEWHERE else.

Yes, that's what I meant, thanks. I edited for sense-making.

My own opinions and desires I have tried dilligently to keep to myself, because in spite of them I am curious to see what the will of the majority actually is.

But if you and others keep their desires secret we will only know the will of the loud voices.

There are plenty of other people voicing my viewpoint, and if things come to a vote, then I will vote. Meanwhile I really am serious about finding out where most people fall on the useage scale, and in order to promote discussion I'm trying to elicit comments from all sides.

At least I think that's what I'm doing.

At this point, my only real polling questions would be to either validate or disprove the assumptions I listed above and how we would address that.

When the volume and density of discussion in a thread drops does the thread lose value or interest for you?

Do you think having too many show threads or small interest threads bleeds volume and density from the core threads?

If so, should there be some kind of check on how many small threads we create?

If so, what kind of check on thread growth would you support?

My questions are probably filled with unsupported assumptions, but those are basically the things I'm curious about. Obviously my questions lead in one particular direction so my bias is clear, but if people do think that dilution of volume and density is a negative for the group then it seems like the other questions follow.

Those are the things I want to know from the community as a whole.

I'm trying to figure out the source of bon's anxiety.

I do agree with what you've posted. What I said about not wanting to be passive aggressive-- I don't want to use anxiety and hurt feelings as emotional blackmail to get my or other people's ways. So it's not necessary to appease me just because I am anxious about things. I am just trying to give some context for how important I think some of this is.

Polling sounds completely innocuous, but I suspect we will use it to identify problems and solutions that will end up making us worse off. What poll response is going to say "I don't want anything to change"? None. We all have our wants. And those wants will be roughly equal, we will make an attempt to appease everyone, and end up with a complete shitshow of 12-person threads.

As for the Clay Shirky article, he basically says that if you don't give the core group more influence in some way, the community withers because the core group is what makes it succeed. But when you put it that way, people here protest with some notion that this should really be a democracy. So I just linked to the article so that it might be persuasive in context. Which is not to say that I think we need to change how we do things around here. I think it's fine. I don't think we should change things to give casual people more of a say.

The source of my anxiety is essentially (1) I like things the way they are and (2) I am feeling a real drive here to CHANGE things in ways that will fragment this community too far. For the first time in a long while I am planning for when the b.org that I know is no longer here. But again, I don't want to use that as a kind of club on the discussion that people want to have.

Dude, breath. Stepping into Bureaucracy is a marathon commitment, not a sprint. Only the stubborn and cranky survive.

I'm okay. I've rested. The absurdity of it all was just slapping me in the face last night.

In typical gemini fashion, I'm now torn -- part of me is becoming conviced by bon's posts that this discussion is maybe not a good idea at all, but I really wonder what the alternative is? How do we as Buffistas not have a conversation? I think we don't know how to do that. It's unpossible. (Plus, I'd also like to point out that people thought voting would be the End of the Board as We Know It. That didn't happen either)

The rest of me still thinks information and discussion will actually help, but we have to be patient about it, and not rush to either conclusions or actions. Maybe the solution is as simple as some minor tweaking of our current vote rules.

Specifically -- alter the six-month moratorium so that it kicks in regardless of whether or not the 42 person quorum is met. A lot of people have been saying they vote "No Preference" because they want the quorum to be met, don't care how the vote falls out, and just want everybody to shut up about it. If everyone has to shut up about the subject regardless of whether 42 people have expressed an opinion on the subject or not, there's no need for the No Preference option. We still have the quorum, so that if a particular proposal is not able to generate 42 votes, it doesn't pass no matter how the vote turns out. But if the quorum is met, then without a No Preference choice, we can be sure that the proposal has passed or failed on its merits alone.

Plus, if thread creation is required to garner passing votes from 42 interested parties, we know the thread is viable enough to truly warrant creation. Right now, I think we have a very real problem in that a thread can be created when three Yes people outvote two No people, and 37 other people just want them to shut up about it. That doesn't seem right to me, nor does it seem like it reflects our intentions when we instituted voting.

So, maybe we need representational government here to secure the rights and preferences of the long-time b.org community.

I can see some value in this possibility, but I also fear that seriously attempting this will cause the board to disintegrate into lynch mobs.

Serious question. If there are truly 60-70 people that are considered the "core" group of people, and the majority of those people are worried about what the board will become if there are too many new tv threads (not saying that's so, just if), why wouldn't those people not change their posting habits regardless of whether there was a new tv thread or not? If 60-70 people continued to discuss everything whitefonted in Natter, if that was so important to them, what difference would the tv thread inhabited by however many other non-core people make to their board experience?