And I'd distinguish a cooking thread because cooking matters seem to be comfortably discussed in the general interest threads.

Games have a lot more tie in with a board that sprung up around television discussions, because I see it as other media like movies, books/graphic novels, and music. I don't really see cooking as a media. Of course I may be doing it wrong.

But the feeling seems to be that it's difficult to get such potential conversational topics started in the available threads. So a gaming thread wouldn't be shuttling such topics off to the 'burbs, it'd be creating a space w/in city limits in which such topics could fluorish.

A space within city limits would be talking about it in an existing thread, like Natter.

Okay, so the city analogy breaks down.

You get my point.

Right, and your pro is my serious con.

Right! Which is why I'm again' it!

It's not leeching existing conversation, no, but it's shuttling off potential conversational topics into their own cul de sac, furthering the sprawl-based change from city to vast regions of suburbs.

I see your point, Plei, but I disagree with it. Gaming seems specialized enough that it gets utterly lost in the volume of other stuff in Natter or Bitches.

But more importantly, I think there's no case to be made that the people who have expressed the most interest in a gaming thread would disappear from the other threads. We would not be locking ourselves up in our own cul de sac, just trying to find a small room where we could hear each other speak about gaming above the din.

Whatevs. I've never really understood the anti-proliferation stance, but that's a fault that lies with me and not with thee. And I don't mean to imply the position has no validity, just that I don't understand it.

HARTBORKEN

New favorite word.

tabletop RPS

Aieee, my eyes. Also, depending on the table, not very safe.

I could do a "on the one hand, on the other hand" type of entry, but really, my chief criterion for a new thread is if the discussion is overwhelming and bothering the base-population of the thread it's in. Which gamertalk is not currently doing, nor, considering the lack of in-thread gaming, is it likely to do.

But more importantly, I think there's no case to be made that the people who have expressed the most interest in a gaming thread would disappear from the other threads. We would not be locking ourselves up in our own cul de sac, just trying to find a small room where we could hear each other speak about gaming above the din.

Yes, this.

It seems that people are interested in discussing gaming but, for whatever reason, don't do it in Natter or Other Media. Either we can take apart Natter and Other Media and try to figure out why gaming discussion doesn't happen and how to make those threads more "gaming discussion friendly", or we can create a small space for gamers to talk about the subject. That's my feeling.

but really, my chief criterion for a new thread is if the discussion is overwhelming and bothering the base-population of the thread it's in. Which gamertalk is not currently doing, nor, considering the lack of in-thread gaming, is it likely to do.

I think the point we're trying to make, Nutty, is not that gaming talk is drowning out other discussion in some other thread, but that in any thread it *could* happen in, it is so overwhelmed by other topics that it basically doesn't happen.

Is there no room for making spaces to alleviate those conditions in your board world view?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that using only "volume of discussion overwhelms other topics" as a thread creation litmus test, I think you are ignoring some other valid thread creation conditions. Possibly only in this specific case, but I think it does hold true here, and thus makes it worthy of consideration.

There are flaws and holes in the "only when the topic takes over an existing thread" test.

But more importantly, I think there's no case to be made that the people who have expressed the most interest in a gaming thread would disappear from the other threads. We would not be locking ourselves up in our own cul de sac, just trying to find a small room where we could hear each other speak about gaming above the din.

Yeah, okay. I get (and generally agree with) Plei's anti-cul de sac stance. This helps, some.

I think the arguments for a gaming thread are the same arguments for a cooking thread, really.

I would violently oppose such a thing - that would absolutely be stripping prime meat out of existing threads.

Question from a non-gamer: Obv, there's a desire for more game talk. But is the talk you're going to get from a thread where actual gaming is unpractical going to be satisfactory? Is it likely to peter out or devolve into nattery space because of that?

Or, thinking out loud, would there be support for (or a point to) a natter-discouraged stance in such a thread to keep things on topic and to head off the potential cul de sacking?