I'd definitely suggest having a leader for discussion, rather than leaving it completely up to the thread. That would tie into David's suggestion about having people who are more familiar with a genre or an author being able to contribute.

Maybe put together a list of people who are willing to lead? Then, say, a month ahead of time, the next person on the list comes up with a book, proposes it in the thread. It's either accepted or shouted down by consensus.

I think I have been convinced that we should try the Book Club in Literary before starting a new thread.

Unless there are denizens of Literary who are against that. Which I have not seen. I have seen Pro-Book Club folk worrying that there are Literary people who will be put out, and I share that worry, but if someone said 'Me! Me! A Book club would ruin Literary for me" I missed it.

My structural proposals:

Rotating leadership/moderator/cat herder, so as to avoid burn-out.

An initial call for likely books to be read, older classics and newer, potential classics, with more proposed as things go on. Preference given to shorter over longer ("Jane Eyre" vs. "War and Peace") so that people have a chance to finish the thing--unless the consensus is that we ache to read "War and Peace," then it can be divided up into ranges of chapters.

Lead time of one month for books to be read, possibly with the first two announced together to give people time to get up to speed.

All classification of books eligible.

Initial discussion time of one month, unless people start getting twitchy at week three and want to move on to the next one.

end proposal

I had an idea for an analogy for using a separate thread for this: Literary is a big room with an ongoing party/argument/bull session in it. In-depth discussions occasionally break out, and they're quite fun, but it's difficult to concentrate because of all the other things going on. Also, if you leave all your notes and materials on the table in the corner, sometimes they get messed up by the other folks in the room--through no fault of their own, of course. Table gets bumped, a stray breeze catches stuff, a drink gets put down on that carefully crafted comparison of James Joyce and Erica Jong and nobody else can find it.

It would be nice if we could use the conference room in the corner, if we could just get the key out of the administrators' hands.

Lead time of one month for books to be read, possibly with the first two announced together to give people time to get up to speed.

I was under the impression we'd discuss as reading. I realize now this was only my crazy brain making stuff up, and not any actual part of the conversation. But I figured we'd "release" chapters (or a block of pages) each week, episode style. Does anyone know what I mean?

Example

Book: The House At Pooh Corner (sorry, it's what I have on hand)

Chapters up for discussion week of 4 July-10 July:

In Which A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore

In Which Tigger Comes to the Forest and Has Breakfast

In Which A Search Is Organdized (sic), and Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again

In Which It Is Shown That Tiggers Don't Climb Trees

and the on deck chapters--the set of chapters (or whatever) for the week of 11 July-17 July would be announced then, too for those who wanted to read ahead, but they wouldn't become fair game for discussion until 11 July.

In other words I *really* thought we'd treat it like a show thread, but with books, and we'd talk as we read. Just thought I'd share.

I was over a 100 posts behind, and some of this has been covered, but I am still posting it all.

That getting into picking apart a book, like one of the shows, wasn't happening in there for reasons other than the individual poster.

I think it wasn’t happening because there hasn’t been a critical mass of people who liked that type of discussion.

Can we kindly stop patting some of the local residents on the head, saying in effect, "You're so cute, with your Bridget Jones and Georgette Heyer reading. Now go sit at the kiddy table while we grownups talk about Middlemarch."

Consuela, do you have your father’s # handy so I can ask for your hand?

And if you're no longer subscribing to Literary, then it is relevant, because you and the others were there first, were participating and talking and swapping recs and posting links to articles and all the rest.

Really? people who were in threads first get to dictate how they run? I think it should be the majority. If we are gonna start doing things based on seniority, then I’d like a pecking order roster to see who I can boss around. God knows there is enough stuff I’d rather not have on the boards.

I wasn't getting what I wanted out of it, so I didn't participate -- well, boo hoo on me. That doesn't give me the right to repurpose the thread and make it a place where you don't go.

Of course it does, if enough other people share your interest. Threads change, this whole board has changed. Sometimes people don’t like those changes and leave. You start trying to control it too much and other people leave.

But I think tossing around terms like "lobby" and "camp" are a little much.

Oh no, there are meetings. When I counted votes once, I kept the tally sheets with names. I freely shared the emails of people who voted similarly. That’s the kind of person I am.

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.

Speaking for myself ONLY on this. One reason that I will continue to bring it up over and over and over again, is that people seem to pay so little attention to it. I don’t want to have to send money in every year. I could have stayed on TT for that. The backend work is not finished. Nothing is fixed. We don’t have a solution and we don’t have enough money to stay on a dedicated server for multiple years (I think we have 1 year). Of course we can wait to deal with it then, I am not one who wants to do that.

Further clarification on my issue, it is all about technology. If word is that we have funds for 3 more years and load is no longer a problem even with DVD releases, animated series, BDM and whatnot – then I no longer care, add threads at your will. Because I care not one whit about fragmentation.

But I figured we'd "release" chapters (or a block of pages) each week, episode style. Does anyone know what I mean?

I would hate that structure.

_______

I see two things going on around the idea of a bookclub, 1) people yearning for discussion like we had around the shows. & 2) People wanting b.org to be all things to all people.

Some days I’d like things like they were the last month of free TT, or the first couple of months on WX, or right after we built this place.

In other words I *really* thought we'd treat it like a show thread, but with books, and we'd talk as we read. Just thought I'd share.

I think we can be both. The thing with a book, though, is you've got the whole story in front of you and you're not waiting for the next chapter to appear so that you can resolve the big questions that came up with the previous chapter. If you're a fast reader, you could have teh whole book devoured in twelve hours, and the temptation might be to reveal the ending to someone whose questions are all answered in a later chapter.

I'm trying to avoid whitefont, is the big thing.

I would hate that structure.

I was not advocating it as much as sharing my impression. My impression doesn't matter a bit, as this was neither my idea, nor was it my proposal.

.......................................................

(The follow are general comments to all)

A. Book Club Structure
I think locking a structure down completely before the thread is approved (or before we embark on a club experiment in Literary) is counter-productive. I do think we need to discuss it, and have a loose understanding, but we have to be flexible, such that if we find something else works better as we're going along, we can do it.

1. Our Bureaucratic Blah Blues
I know some people want structure defined before the thread goes to vote, but I'm just looking at our past. The more rigid we are in this thread and bureau, the more people are hurt, upset, angry, turned-off, disgusted. The more we legislate details, the more unhappy everyone seems (at least it seems so to me).

B. Since When Do We Do This?
I have no problem (if this book club thing gets approved), letting whomever is interested, work out the details as they go along. With the exception of our voting process, and with another exception of defining spoilers (and procedures for handling them), when have we made people tell us how they're going to talk in a thread, before the thread is created?

This push for structure definition, is to me, another burden being placed on this proposed thread (the first would be insisting Wolfram insert an I'll-shut-it-down clause), that we never insist upon for other threads.

C. Fragmentation of the Community/Sprawl
I don't like it either, but I don't think the blame can be placed either only or mostly on proliferation. Sprawl happens on linear boards too (one-big-thread style boards). In some ways, it is worse, because people stop talking to the group as a whole, and only talk to certain folks.

1. Fragmentation when everyone is allegedly "together"
You know how whenever we get an influx of Bronzers (from a linear board, btw), there's some Buffista bristling at the posting style that looks like this...

Narrator: I saw Xander in a Speedo. Wet. Last night.

tiggy: When is Kane's new CD coming out?

Kat: My friend is now making her own knitting needles. They sound gorgeous. If I can get her to share a photo, do you want to see?

Plei, amy: Ben wants to start reading Batman comics, where should he start? He's 8 years old, if that makes a difference.

Betsy, deb: I need a good chocolate cake recipe for Scott's birthday. Any suggestions?

Nilly: When are you coming again?

UTTAD: There was a lot of talk about Daleks on LJ the other day. Are you sure you don't want an account? They're free.

Hec, JZ: Scott rented School of Rock. I know you took Emmett to see it. Can you please give me a run down, so I can decide if it's okay for all three of my kids? Is there much innuendo? How is the language?

When everything is kept together and it gets big, people stop reading the board/threads. They start doing a search for their names only (control + F), to find the people they were talking to and the discussions that interested them. As far as I can tell, we're still going to have sprawl. We already do. But without threads, it's harder to find the paths, never mind the highway. It's harder to both initiate and sustain conversation.

I think a lot of the sprawl is a damned if we do/damned if we don't, thing.

2. Admittedly, Thread-divided sprawl is also a problem
If we do thread, there is physical separation. There are cons. There is also the plus that when someone here is looking for a particular topic, the someone has a decent idea of where to find what. I know get bored with the same old threads all the time. Sometimes, I have to be pried out of Natter with a crow bar. Sometimes, I avoid it like the plague.

If we don't thread, there is still conversational separation, and it has the drawback of no organization. We know this. We see this in Natter. I remember times that Natter has gotten prickly, because group A is talking about Serious Subject X, and Group B, doesn't want in, so starts talking about Fluffy Subject Y. Group A feels like its an attempt to shut down their Serious Subject X discussion. And you know what? Sometimes it is. But that's okay, in a general conversation thread. And for people who like general conversation threads, we have Natter, and other non-focused threads.

Some Buffistas do like organization, and want to have a thread, at a threaded board. That's what all this discussion is about--having a thread at a threaded message board?

...

Really? people who were in threads first get to dictate how they run? I think it should be the majority.

Which, I should point out, is how we ended up with the situation in Literary as it stands.

Which, I should point out, is how we ended up with the situation in Literary as it stands.

Michele, please let it go. I'm asking nicely. Every time this gets brought up that there is an atmosphere of anti-deep-discussion, I get more and more insulted.

I absolutely agree with what Miracleman said last night: you want deep discussion in any thread, you start it. If there is anyone else who wants to participate, then that person will. If anyone wants to have a specific conversation, then the burden is on that person to initiate it and move it forward.

Which way, Michele? By letting seniority dictate, or by letting majority dictate? (I'm not taking the piss. I don't lurk there enough to have a clear picture.)

eta...

If answering this question is going to cause more hard feelings, I retract the question.