I think they implied some sort of unified front, Sean. To be honest, until discussion starts, I can't remember who's cautious about proliferation, and who puts it lower on their list of priorities.

If that's not what you meant to imply, I'm glad to know it.

Seems like I counted new threads wrong, but I agree with what Plei said -- most threads that come to a vote, come to pass. It is possible that said group of people is very effective at yelling people down, but really? If you don't care what they (or anyone else) has to say, vote your conscience.

So the main objection is that we already have a book thread, and another thread will cost us money.

On the other side we don't know that it will cost us more money- have the others? There was a lot of talk that the original thread structure didn't lend itself to discussing a book in-depth. I read that to mean that we'd either have to change the structure of the original thread, or make a new one.

People didn't think a general tv thread would work because people watch a bunch of different shows and there would be too much whitefont/unfocused discussion- why is that different for Literary?

I could be wrong, and we could all have a sudden, blinding urge to discuss books, but I suspect that like comics, the OC, Alias, or any of our other subinterests, you're not going to get a huge percentage of board participation, and I don't think that more dedicated server money is worth it in that event.

But we're not paying any more for it now, and ita said we're not taxing our resources. We can afford it now. If we can't afford all the threads we'll cut back.

I think it's fruitless to try and tote up who resists new threads on principle and who doesn't, and who wins and who doesn't. It's irrelevant and divisive.

It's like this: we talk about the merits of adding a new thread, we vote on it. Whatever side is more persuasive or answers a more compelling need will get the most votes. If we overtax our resources, then we will address that issue. We don't have a timetable for when we're going back to something other than a dedicated server. We're not making those choices right now. Nor are we running around profligate with thread-adding. Firefly and Minearverse and Lovesick were direct extensions of our original mission - gimmes. Outside of that we've actually been very very very slow to add threads.

Beyond the rest of the arguments, I think a book club thread is a very useful community experiment. What precedent might it set? We could find an entirely new way to organize thoughtful discusison. That's a good precedent - not a bad one.

most threads that come to a vote, come to pass.

One reasons why? Because threads aren't proposed until they serve a real need or desire.

But as of right now don't does equal don't, which is what I want to change. And creating a book club thread is one way, too.

Assuming I'm reading this correctly, this statement is true if and only if it happens in literary. ;P

I'm probably not reading it correctly, though, so I'll ask for clarification: do you mean that in-depth discussion about books is not happening, and that's what you want to change? (My brain parsed it as "in-depth discussion about books is not happening in Lit, and that's what I want to change.")

Right ... so we found ways to accommodate people's interests. Buffistas interests include books.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Our situation as a community, and as a board, has changed drastically from the days when the default answer to any interest was to create a thread.

I do, from time to time, support the creation of new threads. Usually if there isn't a space that fits the need exant. But I've been around literary since WX, and believe that not only can it accommodate such discussion, it would be a logical outgrowth of the thread, which has in its time supported extended discussion on the nuances of Trollope.

And, since the kerfuffle came up, I think the opposite applies...if you want to have a discussion about a book and somebody pops in with "Read that, hated it"...so? Ignore them. You don't have to respond. Edit them out of your personal universe and continue your discussion with whoever you were originally talking to. Had people done that, the kerfuffle wouldn't have happened.

Coming in late, but, no. If every time you try to have a discussion about a certain type of book, multiple people pop in with "Hated it, overrated, gross, monkeypants," then you start to think that maybe this is not a place to have a discussion about a certain type of book. If your deep deconstruction of Dick Grayson's butt as signifier* in the DCU is ignored in Other Media, or met with "I hate deconstructionism!", well, you're not likely to spend the half-hour it took you to write that post again. I am exaggerating here for effect, of course, but I think the point that was getting made was that the general climate in Literary was not hospitable to having in-depth discussions of literary texts.

Also, what JZ said.

Now, as you can see from Consuela's post above, the discussion ended up conflating "literature" and "critical approaches." (I was as guilty of this as anyone, by the way.) Mostly because it started with people turning up their noses at Moby-Dick as boring, as I recall. There's no reason you can't have critical approaches to Georgette Heyer -- heck, a quick Google search turned up an essay called "Georgette Heyer: The Historical Romance and the Consumption of the Erotic, 1918–1939," unfortunately behind a registration barrier.

In another on-line community I'm part of, there's currently a heated but nuanced debate ongoing over what the distinction between sci-fi and fantasy is (my favorite snarky non-answer: bad cover art vs really bad cover art). I have no dog in that particular hunt, but it's been a great read, including cited examples and counter-examples, some talk of the history of both genres, and involvement by "experts" and newcomers. I don't think from what I've seen of it that the Literary thread as currently active would have a debate like that, though you never can tell. A Book Club thread might might maybe fix the critical discussion part of the issue at hand, if it was extremely lucky (i.e., it beat all the reasons people have cited for why it might fail), but as long as people feel looked down upon by other people's desire to discuss Middlemarch**, it's not gonna fix the "literature" part.

• Don't tempt me.
• * Middlemarch sucks. I can say this because amych is too far away to run a sword through me. Thackeray, on the other hand, RAWKS!

I could be wrong, and we could all have a sudden, blinding urge to discuss books, but I suspect that like comics, the OC, Alias, or any of our other subinterests, you're not going to get a huge percentage of board participation, and I don't think that more dedicated server money is worth it in that event.

OK, I didn't get the thrust of this argument.

I think discussing books is something a lot of us want to do, but with all of us reading different things at different times, we couldn't. I think putting a book club in Literary would alter the structure of the thread- which is something else that would have to be discussed if we were going to go that route.

Seems like I counted new threads wrong, but I agree with what Plei said -- most threads that come to a vote, come to pass.

I forgot to note in my last post - I genuinely didn't know numbers, and I stand corrected that anti-proliferation has prevented more threads than have been created.

But the fact that my gut-check flies in the face of actual number bespeaks an effectiveness beyond mere hard numbers. And there's a pretty good reason for that - the one opinion that can be counted on to come up every time, and defended pretty strenuously, is the anti-proliferation argument.

Also, since our continued residence on a dedicated server has come up again, can I ask why we are still here? It seems we've been here far longer than we originally anticipated. I know people have jobs and lives, so really I'm just looking for an update, but seriously - is there anything at all that I or anyone else can do to help speed it up? I thought we'd be long gone by now.

One of the things that has convinced me to stay with this board, since I found it, is that I think pretty much everyone here has interesting and funny things to say. SO many boards become dull, but there's always something interesting going on here. One reason I'd like the book club thread is because I'm genuinely interested in what buffistas think about the books they are reading. I'd like to discuss that in a organized way. (Having said that, the word tautological scares me so I hope I won't have to post with dictionary in hand.)

On an unrelated note, could someone briefly explain the anti-proliferation fears? I gather it has something to do with server limitations and money, but since I've been here, I haven't really understood the impact of adding threads. What is the impact on the board as we add new threads?

Mostly because it started with people turning up their noses at Moby-Dick as boring, as I recall.

Actually, the spark that flamed the discussion initially had nothing to do with that. The whole ball got rolling when people were getting defensive about romance/genre fiction in the context of an article to which someone had linked.