If I'm reading ita's posts correctly (and apologies if I'm not), we're near capacity already.

I think you might be misreading it. I haven't read anything from ita suggesting that she's found a limit or that we're near it.

We're on a dedicated server. In the incredibly unlikely event that a Heroes thread doubles our traffic it would make the board slower, but the server wouldn't fall over and no one is going to kick us off.

Wait wait wait. We are talking about radically altering the existing personality of Boxed Set, and I worry that people are glossing over the cultural history of same.

I worry that Boxed Set is understood as more than one thing to many people. For me, I regard it as a media-fandom thread, where people talk about the shows they watch in a particularly cultural way. That's why, e.g., Spooks conversation pops up in there often, despite Spooks not being a science-fiction-y show. It's a mediafannish show. To my mind, Boxed Set and the Fanfiction thread are basically two aspects of the same thing: and that thing is not "What's on the Sci Fi Channel" except incidentally.

I know that's not true for everybody; the tenor of discussion of several shows is such that I can tell quite a few people have drifted into Boxed Set without the background in mediafandom culture, or even necessarily science fiction culture, and in some ways can function without ever picking up those cultural markers (because they can focus on the show). I suspect that non-mediafannish types find endless FCM and "Speak to me about the the hotness of characters on Supernatural" discussions terrifically boring and WTF-y, because they're unaware of or uninterested in that component of the existing mediafannish culture of the thread.

Boxed Set, when it was originally created, was a squish of several things that only kinda sorta went together: the Smallville thread (strongly mediafannish); the Farscape thread (mixed bag); and the Due South thread (so mediafannish that its content had moved on almost entirely to talk about Stargate). We've always strongly held that Boxed Set is not a general TV discussion thread, which is how we've kept it manageable. I guess the question is, now that it's not manageable, how best to split out content without making a hash of the existing culture?

Going Boxed Set Network vs. Boxed Set Cable is a bad idea, I think, because Supernatural is network and is strongly mediafannish; and the Stargates are cable and also strongly mediafannish. I also believe that turning any number of Boxed Set threads into General TV threads is not going to work, because there is variety and then there is making the kids who don't know each other dance at the high school assembly. There's got to be a simpatico among the topics grouped, or else in the culture of the people doing the grouping, or else we really will end up with three conversations at once, all talking past one another. And be back in here, six months from now, asking for three separate threads.

What do I think would work? Don't know. But I don't want to go pulling something apart without knowing what it is we're demolishing.

The current Box Set setting is occasionally confusing yet works out reasonably well for me, but then, I watch most of the shows being discussed. Still, it's tough to interject a post about... say, The Dresden Files (which I don't watch) when there is a robust discussion going on about another show, be it Heroes or SPN. Actually, I'd say those two shows are being discussed at a higher volume than BSG right now, despite the fact that the latter is in season. (But that might have something to do with the declining quality of BSG this season.) Heroes is certainly the major reason why I visit the Box Set nowadays.

I would support a separate Heroes thread if enough people are interested in it, especially in the setting where people don't enter Box Set for other shows for fear of Heroes spoilage. It is turning out to have a surprisingly elaborate mythology, and I can see the discussion being sustained through the season finale and the summer hiatus. My personal preference would be not to have Heroes and SPN (and other non Sci-Fi shows) merge, since they are quite different animals, but I'm not wedded to the stance or anything.

How is Lost this season? I've given up on the show during hiatus, but it looks like there are less than 200 posts on the thread despite... what, 3-4 episodes being aired since it returned? Why not close that and put in a Heroes thread in its stead, instead of doing a complete reorganization? As for VM thread, I think we'll know its fate soon enough in the next few weeks. If it doesn't get renewed, then it's a no brainer to close it.

Cereal: Nutty's point about mediafannishness clicked something in me as to why I feel ishy about merging Heroes and SPN. SPN is strongly mediafannish. Heroes -- not so much, and probably has a broader appeal to the Buffistas who are not so steeped in that culture. I'd prefer SPN to remain in Box Set, but would be OK with Heroes branching out.

I think you might be misreading it.

My mistake, then.

I'm not fond of the idea of killing the Lost or VM threads. They will likely die a natural death. If it doesn't muck things up technically they can continue to serve us.

There hasn't been a Boxed Set breakup plan that has thrilled me either. If it is broken in half the problem of avoiding discussion of one show while waiting to catch up on another still exists.

At this point I would support pulling out Heroes if enough people want that, but not making another mixed bag tv thread. Still reading the discussion because it is interesting to read how other people view and use the threads. Also, if anyone feels really strongly one way or another I accept bribes.

Nutty has spicy brains.

framework that allows for some separation of show discussion while at the same time limiting the possibility of thread proliferation.

Part of me likes this idea, but... first off, I know that I would just come into the Fox thread blabbling about House every week, which is not genre. (Since we are dealing with the shows that fall into the "genre" category, I was extending that to the hypothetical new threads.)

I think having a network-related thread (that isn't whitefonted) will cause issues, because everyone will have some show that they didn't watch yet that week that people will be talking about. And if we're talking about incorporating whitefont, then we don't need to worry about Boxed Set, it will just become a field of snow.

I've gotta say I've had the same issues with not going into Boxed Set so I'm not spoiled. I think tagging would be excellent if we can implement it... if nothing else, we start every post with the name of the show, and then people can skip posts. (Too thread-nannying, though?)

I don't know that splitting to network/cable would lighten the load that much. Heroes (which is what started this) would end up in the same thread as Supernatural, which is also post-heavy (at least recently). Would that really fix a problem that something like tagging posts wouldn't?

On the server load table size tech issue thing. Just for clarity in my mind, are we fine with speed and server load because of the shiny dedicated server, but there is concern over the size of the table(s)?

Tagging posts might not be needed all the time. When a watch n post is happening it wouldn't make sense. But if I had a brilliant theory or a question about BSG in the middle of a flurry of Heroes posts I would tag BSG so it would pop out to those fans. Also, using tags when a post covers 3 shows is helpful.

When discussing the hottitude of the various Jacks, tags not needed.

I worry that Boxed Set is understood as more than one thing to many people. For me, I regard it as a media-fandom thread, where people talk about the shows they watch in a particularly cultural way. That's why, e.g., Spooks conversation pops up in there often, despite Spooks not being a science-fiction-y show. It's a mediafannish show. To my mind, Boxed Set and the Fanfiction thread are basically two aspects of the same thing: and that thing is not "What's on the Sci Fi Channel" except incidentally.

Am I imagining that non scifi/spec-fic show discussion has been frowned upon in Boxed Set? (I might be.) I don't know Spooks or its premise, but it seems to me when the discussion has veered toward a "regular" show, we've been redirected to make sure it doesn't become a de facto general TV thread, and media-fannishness was never mentioned as the criteria (openly enough for me to discern it) anyhow.

ita, specifically, I have a (quite) dim memory of you frowning on a conversation about a non "genre" show (in the way we use "genre" when talking about Boxed Set). It's really dim. I can't remember what discussion you frowned upon, or anything. Am I mistaken? (I may well be).