The more I think about it the more I suspect that Lee may be onto something with her fear that removing Supernatural from Boxed Set might screw with where media fannish discussion goes. Media fandom goes where the discussion is. While all the discussion is on Supernatural, the media fannish people will probably all go a Supernatural thread. The question is, will they go there while staying in Boxed Set, or will they leave Boxed Set behind? And either way, what will discussion do? We currently sustain media fannish discussion in both Fanfic and Boxed Set threads, so it's entirely possible to work cross-thread. But, there are two outcomes I would very much like to avoid:

A. Media fannish people leave Boxed Set for Supernatural/MF thread. Boxed Set talks about Show X. Supernatural thread talks about Show X. Two completely segregated discussions of Show X ensue.
B. Media fannish people stay in Boxed Set. Boxed Set talks about Show X. Supernatural thread talks about Show X. Two parallel and only partly-overlapping discussions of Show X ensue, leading to confusion and potential hurt feelings and misunderstandings.

The nature of media fandom is that it will be textually labile. If the Supernatural thread is media fannish -- and I think at present it will be -- then I guarantee that some topic-drift will occur there. How to legislate a situation where neither A nor B occurs?

ETA: I think I'm describing what Dana is describing, only I am saying it inside-out.

It's not, which is one of the problems predicted by Sean back in the thread DX linked to from the BS creation.

The thing is, the combination has mostly worked up until the last few months. It is the volume of talk, not so much the tenor.

I'll be over here with the rest of the mundanes.

That was way too snippy. I apologize.

My question is this: how is the discussion of SPN any different from the discussions about baseball that take over other threads? In my eyes they're the same sort of thing: something that a group of people like to burble enthusiastically about at each other, and that other people just scroll on by. If SPN does end up with a separate thread, does that mean that the next time swarms of baseball talk starts up, I should suggest to the baseball fans that maybe they should have their own thread?

If my question came off as snarky, that wasn't my intent. It's just ... it's the same sort of question to me.

how is the discussion of SPN any different from the discussions about baseball that take over other threads?

I would think it's because of the sustained and prolonged nature of the discussions. The Oscars can take over Natter, but the discussion happens once a year and is over in a night.

It's a lot less common to be a mono-fan than it once was, and with the majority of fannish discussion and fic-posting taking place on LJ these days, people are used to cross-polination. Putting SPN into its own thread will change that.

There's another possibility: That the high volume of SPN posts is actually hurting cross-pollination because discussion of other shows is getting drowned out by the SPN squee. Give SPN its own thread, and discussion of these other shows (including the seemingly large number of genre shows debuting this fall) might have more room to cross-pollinate and flourish.

Thanks, DX.

Nutty is so much more articluate than I. I'ma point and nod, okay?

I would think it's because of the sustained and prolonged nature of the discussions.

But the baseball stuff IS just as sustained and prolonged as show discussion.

EDIT: and I'm not saying "Argh! No more baseball talk! Go somewhere else!", not at ALL. It's just that was what popped into my head when this was brought up. I scroll past baseball stuff and run the chance of missing the discussions of other things that are interspersed with the baseball posts.

If SPN does end up with a separate thread, does that mean that the next time swarms of baseball talk starts up, I should suggest to the baseball fans that maybe they should have their own thread?

If baseball ever started taking up half the posts in a thread for a sustained period of time, then I think it would be quite reasonable to propose a baseball thread.

t edit and by sustained, I mean (at a minimum) months.

Again, an evolving board culture thing, and it appears to be a facet that's no longer valued nor wanted. Time to let it go, here, and find it or take it elsewhere.

Whoa, hang on there. One can feel that SPN is just possibly dominating a thread beyond what's comfortable for some users without it being any kind of statement at all about mediafannishness.

Media fandom, at least in its current evolution, is often about multi-fannish space.

In fact, one could suggest that the domination (by volume, not by Cabal) might actually be hampering the thread's value as a multi-fannish space, whether it's as a barrier to entry (if you don't watch the show, 75% of the thread is scroll-through) or by making other show discussion hard to find or sustain by folks who want to.

One might, or might not, be convinced by these arguments. But neither of them are necessarily in any way a statement on mediafandom and its welcome in these parts.

But the baseball stuff IS just as sustained and prolonged as show discussion.

Really? I clearly tune it right out, like the dog in the Far Side cartoon.