There's also a difference between the board "working fine", "could use improvement" and "missing something"

Cindy, is that also a ticky box?

If not, it should be.

Also, thanks Ice for the lurker perspective. As one who lurked for several of years back going back to the TT days, and one who reads (way, Way, WAY!) more than I post, I have sympathy for the lurker perspective.

So perhaps it shouldn't be "Vote against threads if you're not gonna use them", but "Do you want the threads? If so, will you use them?"

If the issue is that the more narrow interest threads we have costs us something from the broad community use threads, then I think we have to raise the threshold on thread creation somehow.

If people don't see that as an issue - if a poll shows that there's a broad majority that think the community as a whole is best served by an easy path to new thread creation - then we'd know that.

One thing that's coming up in our poll discussion is a look at ita's numbers. A minimum vote of 42 looks kind of small if we have 500 people who would be likely to vote. Even if you just limited it to 235 regular active posters, that's a fairly low standard to reach.

The issue isn't server use anymore. The issue is whether pulling volume down from the broad community threads has a negative effect. Or whether the board can well survive with a much more decentered discussion approach.

Personally, I think that we might be approaching a tipping point between a viable community and something which gets too scattered to hold together.

But I don't know if that's a widely held view.

See, the other side of that is that there are threads I've withdrawn from because of their structure. I used to post in the threads before the Boxed Set bucket thread, but now I don't post in that thread. Most smaller focus threads would probably mean more posting and board participation from me. If there are a reasonable number of folks like me then the addition of smaller focus threads could be good for the community.

What if we started with bucket threads, with the understanding that we could spin them of if people felt that it was warranted?

What if we started with bucket threads, with the understanding that we could spin them of if people felt that it was warranted?

I guess I don't see how this helps folks for whom the larger bucket threads don't really work. Do we just wait until a show hopefully gets spun off?

ND, do you perceive that there's any kind of relationship between the quality of discussion in the broad community threads and the creation of many smaller focus threads?

I ask that without agenda but just curiosity.

I'm curious to see whether that would affect the way you look at show threads.

Do you see something like a finite resource of talk (relative to group size) which costs the broad focus threads? Or do you see it that the tighter the focus of the thread, then the more robust the discussion and greater participation?

I guess I don't see how this helps folks for whom the larger bucket threads don't really work. Do we just wait until a show hopefully gets spun off?

you can always make the suggestion, and if the board supports it, then it will spin off.

ND, do you perceive that there's any kind of relationship between the quality of discussion in the broad community threads and the creation of many smaller focus threads?

I know for me it was easier to be in more of the threads on a more regular basis when I was posting in Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Due South (For SG1). I felt more a part of the community. On busy days I might not go into Bitches or Natter if there are too many messages to catch up on, but I would go into one of the other threads to see what's happening and post with folks who would then occasionally point me towards something I should follow in a thread like Natter.

Now that I'm involved in far fewer threads, when I have a quick moment and I pop onto b.org and I realize I'm 200+ posts behind in Bitches or Natter I tend to just move on and not post that day and also not read anything on the board. I do a quick check of LJ and come back to b.org on a day when I have more time.

did someone examine if natter and bitches posting rates were affected when the experimental threads were up?

if so can someone Nilly that for me?