We could propose that if it doesn't reach 500 posts in six months, we take it off the feeding tube, as well.

There's no doubt that this rule would help with the housekeeping. By this standard, there are a half-dozen threads that can be closed today.

I imagine that it must feel very unfair to those who are still posting in thread to hear it called dead or useless. I don't see why it hurts to leave it open. I certainly sympathize with their desire to not get lost in the shuffle.

You've got it, Kristin. The show is dead. The movies, probably so. The thread is not. There are other threads that get fewer posts that no one is calling dead. There are both new and longtime posters that both use it and passionately want to continue doing so. It's not a new thread, and we've shown a willingness to eliminate unused or unwanted threads before (book club, experimentals, maybe more), so I don't see a need to get rid of it just to make the point that we will.

By this standard, there are a half-dozen threads that can be closed today.

Threads that are close to 10,000 posts?

The distinction between closing a thread and not opening a new thread after the current one reaches 10,000 matters to me. If we do open a new thread, closing it after 400 messages or whatever would seem less organic to me.

Threads that are close to 10,000 posts?

I don't understand the logic here. It's reaching 10,000 posts because people have been using it. There are other threads that will never reach 10,000 because they are rarely used. Using 10,000 as the decision point ensures that you will kill off threads that get modest use long before you kill off threads that get almost no use. Why is that a good idea?

It's odd, but I think that closing the Firefly thread is something I want to do as a huge fan of the show. Keeping it open just feels weird.

This is where I'm coming from.

The thread is not dead, just slow. Firefly posts pop up consistently at least several times a month.

See, to me it seems that the show hasn't been discussed for quite some time. Now it's references to craxyfen and bits of interviews of actors who seem to be tiring of talking about the show. It's just sad, and I'd rather it not get even more sad.

eta: Which is not to say that those post are unwelcome. I just wouldn't find it so sad if they were in Minearverse, Natter, Boxed Set, or wherever.

I'm all for killing off threads with slower activity than 1000 posts a year, but if you want to make an argument why Firefly is different from those, those threads had evergreen subjects, whether fic, Minear shows, premium tv or whatever. This one is about something that is fixed and done.

I agree that it seems like the majority of recent posting is more about FF fandom than FF.

I do have to say I'm getting weirdly defensive at people actually saying the kind of "you should have your own thread so you don't sully ours with your nasty show" stuff about FF that SPN folks were perceiving in that discussion. Some are more serious than others, I think, but it's a line of argument that I really have no sympathy with.

I agree that it seems like the majority of recent posting is more about FF fandom than FF.

And when the SPN watchers did that (arguably), they got their own thread.

Not the same thing. I don't mean FF posting is about fic or stuff like that. I mean it (seems) to be largely "this is what was posted on some other board today".

(And, speaking for me only, I don't see the FF and SPN issues as being more than peripherally related.)