I think there's a strong emotional/historical feeling to wanting to maintain the Buffy thread line. That's where we started. I'd much prefer having the sole thread of BtVS discussion be labeled "Buffy" than "Previously" (with all due respect to SA's experience on the boards).

If you stop discussing removing threads that cause people to be upset because they want to keep them, then you're pretty much going to stop all such discussions, aren't you?

I'm sorry, I had to run out to lunch, and wasn't here to say that I think I was misunderstood in what I was saying about Sang Sacre...

Farscape, Smalleville, and due South seem like good threads to look at for consolidating because they see a small but steady volume of posts.

Cutting Sang Sacre seemed to me to be excessive because the last post in there was made in July, as part of a very small spurt.

The slightly larger spurt before that was for a few days in June, and then nothing until the first part of May.

I exaggerated and said there would zero net effect, but this was meant in comparisson with Farscape/due South/Smallville. I was not clear on that. But with the miniscule volume of posts it generates compared to even low volume threads, the point I was trying to make was that in that one specific case, the loss of color did not seem to equate to the gain in resources when looked at from a cost/benefit perspective.

Also, I have exactly zero personal investment in Sang Sacre, and I'm sorry I gave the impression that I was defending it because it was a pet thread.

I greatly appreciate everything Monique and Kristen have done for us, and I'm very sorry that this has been such a pain.

But why do it that way? It makes more sense to let Buffy die-out, move all previouslies to the Previously thread --

I do appreciate the viewpoint that SA has expressed, about why she thinks we should keep Previously, but I think the primary reasoning for closing Previously and keeping Buffy open is because we are not called the Previouslistas.

Keeping a Buffy thread open, whatever we do in there, is paying homage to where we came from.

I would like to vote that the Literary thread not be scrapped. I have a real soft spot for books, and the subject matter seems distinct from movies/music/natter to me.

I would definitely read a "How to Help" document and follow suggestions for minimizing resource hoggage.

I will also find that PayPal link and click some $ to the powers that be, if that is a helpful thing.

Again, my thanks to those who make the Phoenix fly.

So your preference is to keep Previously as a thread and delete the Buffy thread, correct?

Personally I don't care which thread is cut, I just don't see why we need 1 Buffy thread and 1 Previously on Buffy thread when the whole show is now reruns.

The choices I see are:

1. Combining Previously and Buffy in someway...either by closing one and keeping the other or creating a new thread. And including Angel reruns in Previously since there isn't anything in the slug that says Angel can't be discussed there anyway.

2. Closing Previously and keeping both the Buffy and Angel threads with discussions of Angel reruns going in Angel. However, this means that UnAmericans and those Americans on tape delay will not be able to participate in the discussion of Angel reruns. So we'll end up having discussions about previous episodes of Angel going on in more than one place.

To me it seems like #2 defeats the purpose of trying to consolidate threads because there are will be duplicate discussions going on and that's what we are trying to avoid.

FWiW -- and it's only because it's been a BIG thing for me -- I really fear that the consolidation of Due South with any other thread will killl it as an active discussion. I enjoy Stargate quite a bit so the addition of that hasn't detracted too badly from the small DS community, and I'm a past Highlander fan, so likewise. But while I've watched both Smallville and Farscape, and at times have kept up with the shows, I really feel their discussions have had a distinctly different flavor and focus.

As if we need yet another branch of discussion, but here I am, throwing it out there: I would suggest that we remind ourselves that "no opinion" is an option on these votes.

For example, on the topic of consolidating two of the fanfic threads into one, I've seen nothing but pro responses. But I've never been within a mile of those threads, so my entire impression of whether or not they ought to be consolidated (from a "will this screw up conversation" standpoint only) is based entirely on a possibly skewed sample. If the pro-consolidate-fanfic persons really are the majority, then their "Yes" votes should be enough to swing the vote.

("No opinion" votes do count towards the minimum vote total, right? Or do we only take a minimum vote total on entire ballots, not individual items? That could be darkly humorous, one of the measures passing because only a single person bothered to vote on it at all . . .)

Finally, to revisit a point from two paragraphs ago, I intend to vote based solely on the "will this screw up conversation" factor. At this stage, I think reducing the physical load should be a side-effect--a needed side-effect, but still a side-effect. Honestly, the same desire to keep the site up and running that made some of us take the "could Natter be deleted" suggestions even a bit seriously is enough to make some of us be a lot more serious about dropping the axe on your Movies and your Musics. (Of course, not that that axe mustn't drop, just that we ought to see if we even go to trial first.) (Damn those mixed metaphors, although it meets the Mayor's standards.) (Timelies, happy birthday, numberslut.)

SOMEONE NEEDS TO WHITEFONT IN 3236

(It's one thing having to stay out of Angel, but everybody needs to be able to participate in this thread)

Trudy, you should post that in B'cy.

I'm in favor of thread consolidation and housekeeping: I have been in favor of combining PPO and Bitchy Fic since we moved to the Phoenix Board. I am vehemently against getting rid of Music, which is a relatively low-volume thread and fulfills a specific need. Vehemently is not even a strong enough word for how opposed I am.

Let's just do the consolidation of threads that people can agree are consolidateable and the code clean-up, and take it from there. ita, can you send the code to the same address you sent the ERD to for me, please?