Those of us who like to put our feet in our mouths find guac is quite tasty on toes, Ailleann.

I think tagging would be way more difficult than is practicable. And putting in some kind of auto-tag facility would be a whole bunch of reprogramming.

Vonnie is enticing me back to my original suggestion, and why Heroes stands out as a show that could amply sustain its own thread. It has a significantly wider appeal than just the mediafan!Buffistas, plus enough plotting, characters, world-building, supplementary materials (web comics, for one!) whose discussion would be enhanced by a dedicated thread.

I'm still following VM and Lost both, so while I'm not in love with closing those threads down, I could see swapping Lost chatter into BS and spawning a Heroes thread instead. VM I don't see as foldable, but it will take a miracle for it to be renewed, frankly, so I have a feeling that the thread will reach its natural conclusion soon enough.

Up above, who gave us a list of the media threads we've added through the last few years? That's very helpful -- it's not a pell mell addition process, is it?

What's the difference between mediafannishness and liking a show enough to talk about it?

I'm honestly confused by the division.

Vonnie is enticing me back to my original suggestion, and why Heroes stands out as a show that could amply sustain its own thread. It has a significantly wider appeal than just the mediafan!Buffistas, plus enough plotting, characters, world-building, supplementary materials (web comics, for one!) whose discussion would be enhanced by a dedicated thread.

I'm still following VM and Lost both, so while I'm not in love with closing those threads down, I could see swapping Lost chatter into BS and spawning a Heroes thread instead. VM I don't see as foldable, but it will take a miracle for it to be renewed, frankly, so I have a feeling that the thread will reach its natural conclusion soon enough.

I think this very much sums up how I feel, Theodosia.

I won't die if we don't get the Heroes thread, but I would prefer having one, over continuing on in Boxed Set. I'm not sure it feels right in Boxed Set, and the conversation is pretty active.

We don't have VIPs for Heroes (and honestly, they've already got their own sites where they post, so I can't see us getting them), so I really don't think we'll add a whole lot of new posters just by opening a thread. We didn't add new posters when we opened the VM or Lost threads. Our TV threads aren't even on the main page any more, so I'm not sure they're even Googleable. We got an influx of posters with Firefly and Wonderfalls because of our Mutant Enemy Associations. I don't even think we got many newbies people with "The Inside" -- did we?

I'd be interested to read other people's definitions of "mediafannish" as well. What Nutty was saying about the mediafannish character of Boxed Set makes sense to me, and I think it's an important consideration to bring up, but I might be defining "mediafannish" differently than other people. In particular, Vonnie mentioned that Heroes struck her as a non-mediafannish show -- or, at least, that the way we discuss it here is less mediafannish in nature than many of the other convos in Boxed Set -- while I actually think of Heroes as being fairly mediafannish myself, esp. with the webcomics and all. Then again, that may just be how I engage with it, and other people may not feel the same way about it.

Anyway, my own definition of "mediafannish" involves liking a show enough to not just want to talk about it, but to want to explore that universe in other ways, such as the webcomic (or the Supernatural comic coming out in a few months), fanfic, vids, extensive discussion of the show's mythology, mapping the characters onto archetypes, that kind of thing. To me it means engaging with the source in a different, and more intensive (and creative), way than just talking about what happened in the last episode. I'm interested to see if other people define it similarly or not.

Am I imagining that non scifi/spec-fic show discussion has been frowned upon in Boxed Set? (I might be.)

No, you're not imagining it. The only reason Spooks has come up at all in Boxed Set is that it's a mediafannish show, and it's quickly been squelched because it's not also a science fiction show. Nobody would bring up, e.g., soaps or ER in Boxed Set; but they would occasionally bring up a show that is part of the mediafandom conversation.

What's the difference between mediafannishness and liking a show enough to talk about it?

I'm not sure I can describe it adequately, but it's a cultural difference. "Liking a show" has no cultural tag to it; "mediafandom" has practices and customs and taboos, some of which have become general Buffista practice (intricate canon discussions) and some of which have not (fanfiction gets its own thread, and does not proliferate as a topic elsewhere). People who like a show seem to show up in Natter, asking whether there is discussion of that show (as ND mentioned once, about Stargate, and Burrell did recently, about Heroes); people in mediafandom have automatically gravitated -- fannish osmosis! -- to talking about new shows in Boxed Set whether that talk has been formally defined as kosher (Torchwood, Life on Mars) or not (Spooks).

Does that make it clearer?

Overall, I'm coming around-er to Heroes having its own thread, which is what the original proposal was. Have not thought out ancillary ideas, like the possibility of closing the Lost thread.

In particular, Vonnie mentioned that Heroes struck her as a non-mediafannish show -- or, at least, that the way we discuss it here is less mediafannish in nature than many of the other convos in Boxed Set -- while I actually think of Heroes as being fairly mediafannish myself, esp. with the webcomics and all. Then again, that may just be how I engage with it, and other people may not feel the same way about it.

Heroes is a show that seems like it would/should be very mediafannish (and I agree with how you're defining it, pretty much), but in general isn't, at least in my fannish wanderings. Mediafen in my experience seem to mostly like Heroes, but without going the extra step and being fannish about it.

In particular, Vonnie mentioned that Heroes struck her as a non-mediafannish show -- or, at least, that the way we discuss it here is less mediafannish in nature than many of the other convos in Boxed Set -- while I actually think of Heroes as being fairly mediafannish myself, esp. with the webcomics and all. Then again, that may just be how I engage with it, and other people may not feel the same way about it.

Oh yeah. I think I took some short hand in that conversation. Media-fandom in the way I referred to it has a particular context -- it's the one I engage in more often in my other fannish space (LJ) than here, and applies more to the first few shows discussed in the thread, i.e. Stargate, dS and SV, and less so to BSG and Heroes.

OK. Sweeping generalization forthcoming: "Media fandom" in that context is a predominently female space, with more emphasis on squee and the emotional/libidinal aspect of the show and the fandom rather than the plottiness, with involvement in extra-textual activities (fanfic and fanvids) and a large overlap with the slash community. Of course there are exceptions, and I'm not saying an average media-fan cares nothing about mythology and only cares about the pretty, but there is something of a difference in the way one engages with a "mediafannish" show compared to another that doesn't quite fall under that umbrella.

Overall, I'm coming around-er to Heroes having its own thread, which is what the original proposal was.

I agree with Nutty, and I think she's articulated why I felt ishy about the proposed basic/premium divide. Although I mostly don't care if Heroes gets its own thread or not.

Wow, I had no idea it was so formalized.