I am ita in this.

I work alone, at home, in my office. Natter is my equivalent of coworker chatter. It keeps me in touch with the greater world, keeps my eyes open, keeps me involved in community. Our community.

When it slows, I disengage and go off (electronically) to do something else.

Interestingly, I am also the other person. There are weeks, months, when I am effectively offline. Then I come back and I make a choice whether to skip or skim. Typically I skim, selectively ignoring threads until I've caught up. But the volume works for me even then. I don't have a problem with finding the material I want through search, bookmark & threadsuck functionality.

I am ita and Kat and Jess and Liese, except for the being offline for months bit.

In the party analogy, the multiple threads is like me sitting at the middle of a long table. Many different discussions are taking place in different sections of the table, but I am trying to participate in them all. I am left with a fragmented sense of discussion, covering all topics that interest me, but without the greater sense of social ebb and flow of an actual conversation.

I'm in natter like I'm at a party, i.e., I barely talk to anybody even if I listen.

I am more participatory in the individual threads which are like smaller conversations which is where I would be more comfortable in real life.

I am ita and Kat and Jess and Liese, except for the being offline for months bit.

Me too, except that it's hours and not months for me, and it always makes me a little sad when it's easy to catch up after several hours away.

The more I think about it, the less keen I become on moving ALL the tv talk out of Natter. It's true lots of us want to talk about tv, but we also want to talk about cats, babies, and lunch, and not everyone is interested in those subjects either. From a certain POV, spinning off a broadcast tv thread because people want to talk about it makes as much sense as spinning off Cats, Babies, and What's For Lunch.

I'd miss tv talk in Natter if it all went away. I kinda miss reality tv talk in there already.

When Natter is busy, I ignore it completely. I check the end to see what's current, then look elsewhere. The long meara-posts that summarize everything always strike me as clunky.

I'd rather have TV talk that's able to follow a thought for half an hour than be part of a "TV-baby-politics-car trouble-TV-cat-work discussion-TV" stream of consciousness. I don't understand what's so difficult about looking in another thread for more conversation. It's a chance for *more* conversation, not just streaming data-ticker conversation.

I don't understand what's so difficult about looking in another thread for more conversation. It's a chance for *more* conversation, not just streaming data-ticker conversation.

Not when the other thread contains spoilers for multiple other shows that you don't want to be spoiled for.

And it's also disjointed conversation, if you're me, because what's on my mind at any given point in an evening is exactly, "Man, my dinner was gross -- OMG, did you see what just happened on TAR -- I am so not prepared for my meeting tomorrow."

I don't understand what's so difficult about looking in another thread for more conversation. It's a chance for *more* conversation, not just streaming data-ticker conversation.

I think over years and years of proliferation arguments that this just doesn't carry a lot of water. People like natter and a secondary thread will not be the equivalent of having "natter for people who are on their computer all day" and "natter for people who are on nights and weekends."