Someone suggested above that Firefly and Farscape might make a good fit - that seems a great idea to me, if the Farscapers agree.

Er....oh god please nonononono. (I might be the only one who feels that way, in which case, combine away, but....)

Someone suggested above that Firefly and Farscape might make a good fit - that seems a great idea to me, if the Farscapers agree.

Er....oh god please nonononono. (I might be the only one who feels that way, in which case, combine away, but....)

Heh. SO with Jess on this, but I'll certainly live if the two are combined.

Let's talk about putting what came from Natter back into Natter and what came from Bitches back into Bitches.

I will agree to this if, and only if, it can be accompanied by an admin smearing ashes over the closed threads and intoning "Remember thou art Natter, and to Natter thou shalt return".

Combine all Fan Fiction threads.

All: Fan Fiction, Bitchy Fic, PPO, Bitches' Anthology.

And here I was, swearing that I wasn't going to get into this. Everyone's going to have selfish reactions, and there's no chance in hell any consolidation will make everyone happy, but:

The different between Fan Fiction and the other threads is that no fic is actually posted there. That makes it work safe, and it means that no one has to page through posts and posts of fic in order to get to discussion. I know this comes up every time, and most people don't post in any of those threads, but Fan Fiction was opened for a different purpose.

I have to say, I think that the stupidest suggestion I've seen so far is that we get rid of Natter and Bitches so that we can continue to cater to the 10 peeps who want to discuss X, Y, or Z in the individie threads,

Well, the suggestion was not made out of any desire to keep a smaller thread, the suggestion was made because the problem is too many posters making too many posts.

Too many posters make too many posts in Natter and Bitches, not Farscape and Smallville. Getting rid of Farscape and Smallville isn't going help, even a little.

I wasn't entirely serious, because as many people pointed out, that's where the heart of our community lives.

Let's talk about putting what came from Natter back into Natter and what came from Bitches back into Bitches.

You mean Music, Movies, and Literature, right Trudy?

Unfortunately, everybody already bitches about how fast Natter and Bitches moves, and we're going to lose people if we get rid of those threads. (Of course, there's a risk of losing people no matter what we do).

But also, our heart may live in Natter and Bitches, but part of the flavor of the board comes from having a place to talk about music, movies, and books.

As ita points out, we're still at the "let's see if killing the quote generator helps," stage, so we're not really talking about closing any threads but the smaller ones, just for housekeeping's sake.

But if we have to make big changes, we need to discuss who we are, and what we want to do, and try and find a way to do itso that we don't have to have the same discussion in possibly as little as a year's time (or less) if Angel ever gets cancelled.

We'll need threads that help define who we are, and what we like, and give us room to chat on broad but descriptive topics, and allow us to natter, but aren't so braod and bloated that they cause server problems, which is really the main issue.

But what if the problem is exactly Natter and Bitches? Closing them may be exactly what we have to do to save the board

Depends on how you define "the board." A lot of people now consider Natter and Bitches to be the central part of "the board." And therefore -- to those people -- getting rid of Natter and Bitches isn't *saving* "the board"; it's getting rid of "the board".

Pretty much agree with Cindy.

Consolidating/trimming threads in the logical way people have been suggesting above -- fair enough. Can't argue with that.

imho the core of this board comprises the the ME show threads, Bitches and Natter. Culling them in favour of the more recent topic threads like music, movies, Smallville etc? Throwing out the baby with the bathwater, to my mind. I know that isn't something that's top of the list, but it is being suggested so ijs.

As an UnAmerican, I pretty much don't hang in the show threads, because I don't get the show at the same time as you folks. My own board experience is therefore centred around Bitches, with forays into other threads and Nillying the Show threads when I finally get to see episodes. I'm here for the community, with its integral MEverse obsession, rather than for the show discussions, for simple reasons of geography.

That said, given that this board is primarily American, I wouldn't suggest prioritising the needs/wishes of UnAmerican over those of you folks -- because it's your backyard we're gratefully playing in. If it needs restructuring in such a way that it's going to ghettoise groups in order to have a board at all, then so be it. As has been said, there's WX, there's LJ, there's People's Forum, and if the majority of Buffistas want/need a streamlined environment without Bitches or Natter, then Go Team Democracy, and all that.

(I'll be in the Egyptian desert looking for the Creme Brullee and de Nile.)

considers typing a grinning emoticon. resists temptation.

A lot of people now consider Natter and Bitches to be the central part of "the board." And therefore -- to those people -- getting rid of Natter and Bitches isn't *saving* "the board"; it's getting rid of "the board".

I just woke up and posted that last one, and now, as I read through Bureaucracy and ita's plea against causing a panick, I'm about to just delete it.

I DON'T WANT TO LOSE NATTER OR BITCHES EITHER!

That's where I spend all my time. I'm with Steph and Fay, I just felt that we were piddling around with talking about cutting rather irrelevant threads, and tried to make a point.

It was a stupid point.

Sean, I don't think you should delete it; this talking-through process is valuable.

And I don't think it's a stupid point at all.

What I think is that this restructuring discussion is bound up with who/what we want to be as a board, which is a question that's popped up more frequently since BTVS ended. Are we primarily a show-discussion board with some community -- which is how the board started -- or are we a community that developed around a group of shows and then expanded?

And if the answer is the latter -- which I think it is -- I recognize that it makes things a lot more complex for us to manage.

t edit But that doesn't make your point stupid.

Okay, I am posting this here and in Bureaucracy and then I am not darkening the door of either of these threads again for a few days. Trying to have the same conversation in three different places is making me nuts. You have a technical question, you can find me in Board or via email.

First off. Stop. Panicking.

I am allowed to panic. That's my job as your webhost. I am supposed to freak out when you're consuming too many resources. You are not allowed to panic. I think it's somewhere in your TOS. Look at the fine print. People with the servers are allowed to panic. No server, no panic.

Next, can we please only discuss changes that have a snowball's chance in hell of a) getting voted in and b) not adversely impacting the entire community? I felt like we were on the right track for a while there discussing what threads could be combined or eliminated with as little pain as possible and then *bam*.

There are 34 open threads right now. There has to be some reasonable way to compromise and combine/delete some of those. Note use of the word reasonable.

Think about the way that you use this board and ways that you can use fewer resources. Set your posts per page higher. Click on "Read New" instead of going back to the main page between threads [It cuts one connection out of the equation]. Respond to several people in one post. Stop talking about closing Bitches/Natter.

If people have technical expertise or know someone who has technical expertise, come forward. ita's passing around copies of the code to anyone who wants it so we can get some second opinions.

I feel like in 24 hours we have gone from one extreme [let's add threads!] to the other [let's drive away half our core community!] and neither is helping the situation. There is some middle ground there that will allow these discussions to be productive. Can we please get back to that?