I read this proposal as "The culture in the existing book thread isn't what I want it to be, so I want a new book thread."

As someone who brought it up in the first place, that's not what was going on. There were a number of people who said the reason we weren't having the kind of critical discussions about books was that Literary was not set up to be that. I can see that, so I mentioned that maybe we could set something up to be that.

I can't help but think there needs to be venting of all the issues that keep swarming around, but have actually very little to do with what it seems was proposed.

How long between proposals?

Is a personal dispute thread out of line?

I don't think that the "culture" in Literary is inimical to extended book discussions; I think it's mainly the lack of critical mass. When only a few people have read the book, you get this type of discussion:

Poster 1: Did anyone read The Story of XYZ?

Poster 2: I did.

Poster 1: Did they really end up in a threesome at the end?

Poster 2: It was ambiguous, but I thought Bob ended up with the gay neighbor.

Poster 3 (who read the book 10 years ago) thinks: There was a threesome?

I think the book club idea is more likely to be successful as a separate, reduced-natter thread.

I'm not sure if I understand the anti-book club thread argument. Is it because of:

• concern over resources?
• concern over divisiveness to the community?
• concern over feelings of rejection to those who don't want to participate but who do want to participate in the lit thread?

For the record, I'm in favor of a book club thread, but not sure if I'm going to participate regularly after the start. I'm game to try, though. We tried this on my other board, and it didn't go very well, though. Still, I got to re-read Pale Fire, so it wasn't a wash.

my issue is over resources.

my issue is over resources.

That, to me, is the most compelling argument. I don't want to have to pony up more often just so part of the community can have their own place, even if I'm in that part of the community. That said, I've never set foot into Bitches, even once, so I'm not sure if the whole pay-to-play scenario is even accurate.

Has anyone in the know about resources weighed in on the issue? I've only read back about 100 posts.

Ditto on resources. ita has weighed in (again) as being anti-proliferation; she's familiar with the server issues.

what I know about the issues it that we are ok now. We are on a dedicated server. But, the backend issues are not fixed and there isn't a set date when they will be. We also don;t know what the fix will do wrt server issues.

I know the DVD release will be coming, the BDM will be coming, eventually Tim will start posting again, the animated series? is happening. And the new fall TV line-up.

I would rather not have to deal with a potential issue and start choosing what to shut down.

I think that until we have fixed our issues, there is a big internet out there that can fill needs not being met here.

Discussions of other books during a book club discussion is extremely distracting and counterproductive.

As I said before, I feel that's a failure on the part of the posters involved. If a discussion can't be maintained because of something shiny...

If this club were to repurpose literary into the book club thread there would be resentment from previous users of literary.

I don't recall any member of Literary who wasn't advocating a Book Club thread expressing any concern whatsoever that this would happen. This seems to me to be an argument made up by advocates of the Book Club thread.

A Book Club is not a conversation. It is a serious endeavor that requires participants, commitment, and focus.

In light of the first part of this post (something shiny) I don't see how having a thread specifically for it is going to suddenly engender a commitment and focus that you can't maintain in Literary. If you can't do it now, why should I believe you can do it in a Book Club thread?