Weighing in on the general tv thread, Tevya style:

On the one hand, there's a lot of great shows Buffistas watch and whitefonting through them in Natter to discuss them is a pain in the ass

On the second hand, a general tv thread is sort of outside the scope of of an M.E. oriented community

On the third hand, the community needs to evolve, and if there's demand for the thread, maybe it should be fulfilled

On the fourth hand, a general tv thread could draw a bunch of non-Buffistas or worse to our quiet "utopia"

On the fifth hand, I really want a place to discuss shows like Alias, and West Wing

On the sixth hand, if the tv thread is anything like the movie thread, I'm going to be afraid to ever go in there because I'll have just seen Tru Calling but not caught up on the latest Sopranos and I'm going to be prudish like an undersexed schoolmarm and avoid the thread at all costs, which will turn into me never going into the thread at all which totally defeats the purpose of having a place to discuss my favorite shows.

So I'm coming out against the tv thread, because at least for me, it won't serve the purpose. I'd rather find myself discussing Alias in Buffistechnology or Jake 2.0 in Buffy Spoilers, then have all the discussion happen in a thread that I'm going to be too chicken to ever go into.

That's my two cents.

This gets into the whole "what are the Buffistas without Buffy" question that was going to come up sooner or later (or state of the board discussion).

Yep. Because if we are moving to a more "general interest" board, then I definitely do not want a general TV thread. I'd be happier with smaller, somehow grouped threads: HoYay!, Reality TV, etc. because then I can track a conversation more easily. A general TV thread would end up being too unweildy to be useful in a free-for-all general interest kind of way.

ETA: Or what Wolfram said.

I'd like to figure out if we are moving to a more "general interest" board because that would have a different implication for me.

I agree with you. I guess I don't need b.org to be any more of an all-interests boards than it is now. I talk about TV here just fine, and I talk about it other places just fine. Can we support, technologically and socially, the alternatives? Or must we, to survive?

I didn't think the issue was bandwith but was SQL connections.

Kat is of the right.

See, now ita is me. I'm fine with how TV gets talked here. But I have more than enough other places where I only talk a specific show, etc.

I'm not saying I want more threads (definitely of the no!) but I think a general TV thread is too general.

And 'cmon, Wolfram and I rarely agree on matters of policy so it must mean we are in the right?

just kidding. A little punchy tonight.

I didn't think the issue was bandwith but was SQL connections.

Kat is of the right.

So how close are we to maxing out on SQL connections?

So how close are we to maxing out on SQL connections?

We already have. It was one of the reasons the site went down a couple weeks ago (pre-move). I made some changes to the code, but we don't know yet how it's metering.

And 'cmon, Wolfram and I rarely agree on matters of policy so it must mean we are in the right?

It's kind of like Arnold and Rob on the same campaign. We've got to win. ;)

I'm in, no surprise given my comments in Bureaucracy earlier, the same corner as ita, Kat, and Wolfram. For all sorts of reasons that have already been stated, I don't think a general tv thread will be all that satisfactory.

But I'm also not up for playing a major role in this discussion, so I will happily cede the floor to those who are making the case far more articulately than I can.

I'm becoming more and more anti general teevee thread.

I think it should be more organic a progression, i.e., when a particular show takes up an assload of dicussion time in another thread, and is picked up for another season, it's likely that a thread would be lobbied and won.

I'm glad there wasn't a Miracles thread, now, but it seemed a good idea at the time.

Wonderfalls might not take up a lot of discussion in the Minear thread, and might fall to FOX' speedy panic button, for example. Or, it could be wildly successful and need a thread spun from it.

I'm unsure where Tru would fall, but I bet it organically would be birthed in the Angel thread and spun out if by some miracle the panic button wasn't pressed by the mighty fist of Sandy Grushow.

It might be a messy way to start, but hasn't every thread grandfathered into existence started in such a way? Natter happens, so a natter thread is created. Spoilers are wanted so a thread is created. And so on and so forth.

I don't give a rat's ass about 98% of the threads here, I know that they're specific to a conversation that doesn't interest me. I don't even know if Due South is a thread for Southernistas or if it's a teevee show, or a discussion of anatomy below the belt. I don't visit the general threads like music or movies, ever, and a general teevee thread is too unweildy for me. I don't want to talk about TAR, am not interested in anyone's opinions. I'm less bothered by the 9 whitefonted posts after an ep than having to skim through a hundred posts on TAR, General Hospital, Joe Millionaire, the OC, and Monster House in a disjointed mass of confusion.

I need some modicum of organization, or my head explodes.

General discussion threads are like junk drawers to me. They contain rusty nail clippers, 48 twist ties from old bread bags, a corkscrew, expired pizza coupons, and somewhere, buried underneath, a roll of film with some great pics waiting to be developed, but may never be found due to the twisted mass of drycleaning flyers and post-it notes with half finished errands scrawled in handwriting that may not be my own.

Or, I'm just in a foul mood.

My two cents:

I have serious concerns about what the addition of a new thread is going to do to our resource usage. I'm already worried about what's going to happen in the fall with the threads we currently have. Yes, we're working on the resource issue and, hopefully, we can come to some tidy resolution that keeps this board up and running and speedy. But, until we come to that resolution and know where we stand, the thought of adding another thread makes me rather twitchy.

So, you know, do what you must. But I'd ask you to please keep the bigger picture in mind when making your decision.