Please try to not take our differences of opinion quite so personally, and I think you'll see that my comments are aimed towards the general discussion, not you.

Like I said, I was probably reading you wrong, as I have done so in the past.

FWIW, here's the list of Threads I Think We Could Reasonably Stand To Lose, in no particular order:

• Buffista Corp
• Spoilage Lite: Buffy
• Buffista Music 1: The Music (And Who Can Blame It) Swells
• Buffista Movies 1: Go Monkey. Choose Monkey.
• Previously 1: The Who Whating How With Huh?
• The Quotable Buffy: She said that? When?
• Smallville 1: Clex!
• Literary Buffistas: Don't Speak Latin in Front of the Books
• The Minearverse: YExpirationDateMV
• Due South: Mountie Fetishists Anon!
• Spoilage Lite: Angel
• The Quotable Firefly: Oh, my God, I am a hack...
• The Jossverse in Other Media
• Farscape 1: Fetch the Comfy Chair
• F2F Planning
• Sang Sacre 1: It's a Blood, Blood, Blood, Blood World
• LotR - The Two Towers: "Dude, Where's my Precious?"

[eta: Also assuming that we're rolling all three fanfic workshop threads together.]

Closing Bitches and Natter is sort of like cutting off your head to lighten the load on your sinking boat.

It's not a good idea, and while I'm all for putting everything on the table, that idea should be removed from the table. It is the essence of the community to many people and to keep talking about it raises the panic level and blood pressure. It's not a useful solution to get rid of what constitutes the community to save the community. There would be no community to save. Particularly since Buffy's off the air, to privilege the show threads over the community talk would be pure suicide.

Frankly, there would be a massive defection to Peopleforum or something similar, and the community would schism and splinter into LJ-land.

As much as I'm loving the deathmatch, from what I understand the fact that we're racking hundreds and hundreds of low-content posts there is a much bigger strain on our resources than the threads with little activity.

I understand and appreciate the desire to house clean and consolidate threads but this is basically rearranging deck chairs on the Titatanic. The threads that have few posts are not causing any problems.

If archiving closed threads would be helpful, then we should do that immediately and it shouldn't be an issue. We've got lots of very old threads archived elsewhere.

I wouldn't mind dumping Spoilers lite if we could start discussing things like episode titles (forthcoming) in the main thread.

I don't want to have to go to "real" spoilers for that.

I totally agree, but I got a bit pissed on when I suggested it earlier.

Hey, Burrell, I'm sorry if I made you feel that way. I just really think that, while consolidating certain threads and repurposing threads is a good idea, that we don't lose things that make us us. (And that sentence makes sense in my head. Sorry if it doesn't on the page.) To me, that is Previously, and the show threads, Natter, bitches, due South, the things we've come to associate with being Buffistas. I know we'll have to compromise some of this, but I think there's other things--like archiving closed threads, deleting inactive threads, consolidating others--that can come before considering deleting still-useful and active threads.

There's just so much flying around in the right-hand threads that we're all pretty tense. Somewhere we have to find the balance between keeping what we love and want, and meeting our technical requirements. And while I know that in the end, we need to look at the majority of what the users want, sometimes you just get passionate about stuff.

So, I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes.

I just really think that, while consolidating certain threads and repurposing threads is a good idea, that we don't lose things that make us us.

Hm. I never realized people considered Previously one of the essential Buffista threads. [And as I type this, I realize that I, personally, have a hard time thinking of any thread that didn't originate on TT as essential. So I have that bias.]

Okay, I retract my deck chairs comment because Kristen says:

Yes. Fewer threads with the same number of posts taxes the server less.

So housecleaning is useful.

Hm. I never realized people considered Previously one of the essential Buffista threads. [And as I type this, I realize that I, personally, have a hard time thinking of any thread that didn't originate on TT as essential. So I have that bias.]

::shrug:: Previously was were I first had in-depth discussion about Buffy. I didn't actually find the show threads until a couple months after I'd been at WX, so most of my posting about the show went on in there. Even after, I couldn't always keep up with the crazy post levels in the show threads, so I retreated to Previously. It's also, I think, where I met Nilly.

It might just be a me thing.

The House Keeping Proposal. Preliminary Ballot. Version 4.0

Each item will be phrased as a yes/no vote. Each item is individually considered (one doesn't need to pass for the other to pass). I'm also including more cuts figuring what passes gets cut and what doesn't pass doesn't.

1. Close and archive The Buffista Corp thread.

2. At some point, perhaps post-death match, the Buffy quotable thread be closed.

3. Close and archive the Firefly quotable thread.

4. Close and archive the Previously thread. A concurrent discussion current season and syndications will be welcome in the Angel thread. Also leaving the Buffy thread to continue discussing all of Buffy.

5. If item 4 as written does not pass, Change the slug line of the Previously thread to reflect that it is a discussion of past episodes of Angel. -- Edited to take Jon's point into account.

6. Consolidate Due South, Smallville and perhaps Farscape into a single thread, called something like Due South/Smallville/Farscape.

7. Close and archive Buffy Spoilers Lite.

8. Change the name of the Buffy/Angel Spoilers thread to "Angel Spoilers"

9. Consolidate PPO and Bitchy Fic and the Bitches' Anthology. PPO and (I think) the anthology would be closed and Bitchy Fic would be renamed. If that's not correct, please let me know.

10. Close the F2F Planning thread until the next F2F goes into being planned and then reopen it to posts at that time.

11. Close and archive Angel Spoilage Lite.

Additionally, post something about how to keep our board up. Add to FAQ? Include in the registration email?

• *********************

To me, these seem small changes that shift things around. Yes, they aren't shifting big giant resource sucks, but I think it's more than just rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. I don't feel the same hopelessness or panic. But I would like to streamline things. If I buy into the idea that making these changes is a useless step, then I am going to figure, why bother and instead of streamlining anything, we streamline nothing.

massive xpost

So let's put our heads together and houseclean.

ETA-- or see above post, which is doing rather than just posting a vague suggestion, like I did!