Sean, I love you man, I agree with your position, but you really need to take the rhetoric down a notch. Channel a touch more of your inner Vulcan.

Really baffled now.

I'm confused as to how I am using heated rhetoric that other people are not.

Could you point it out to me Drew, because I'm sitting here calmly at my computer. I read my posts, and I see calm discussion.

I am getting accused by everybody of being overly emotional and heated and I don't see it. I'm not swearing, I'm not attacking anybody personally, I am addressing specific arguments and the problems I have with them.

I'm deeply, deeply confused as to how I am being overly heated or dramatic.

Are you asking the anti-proliferationists to be less vehement in their stance? Because I'm getting that from what you're saying, but I want to be sure before I proceed.

No, that's not quite what I was saying, but I don't know how to put it better.

anti-vehemence unless it's a reflection of very strong feelings (which is not to say I'm finding anyone unacceptably vehement), pro-defusing tension (which I do see here).

Thank you Fred. Do you see me as having been unreasonable or hysteric in this discussion? I feel like a LOT of people, even people on my side, are seeing me as being ranty and hysterical, and I don't see it. It's a little annoying to be constantly told to calm down, when I don't see myself as being uncalm.

I've never understood someone wanting a thread enough to propose it, but not take it to vote.

I have. It's like bringing the coolest toy to school and watching your friends beat each other up over it. You just want to take the toy home and never take it out again.

It's a little annoying to be constantly told to calm down, when I don't see myself as being uncalm.

FWIW, it reads pretty heated to me. As someone not really convinced of the necessity of a new thread, I feel like I'm about to be accused of kicking someone's puppy.

I have to produce a board that allows individual user thread creation and hasn't collapsed into a useless, unfriendly mess before you'll believe that such a thing exists?

That's a pretty reactionary answer to my question.

When I originally quoted this:

Anti-proliferationistas keep making the argument that new threads irrevocably fracture the community (with an implied *always* in there), and that is demonstrably untrue

I read "the community" to mean our community, not a generic and/or hypothetical community. You may have meant it in a more general sense, but since the anti-proliferationistas that live here are the only ones I know, that's where my concern lies.

I agree that thread creation or the lack thereof has the potential to make or break communities. My direct concern is its effect, or lack thereof, on *this* community. I read your statement to mean that there is concrete evidence in this community that new threads do not create fracture here, and if that is so I would like to see it.

If you were speaking in a more general sense, though referencing our specific users to do it, then the evidence in question probably doesn't exist.

I'm sure there are plenty others, but even just the one example does, in fact, make the argument that thread proliferation will destroy our community demonstrably untrue.

Does it help if it is restated as, "Thread proliferation has the potential to change the culture and nature of the community to the point that, while it may still be a healthy community, it is not the community I joined, nor the community in which I feel comfortable and neighborly and chatty."

FWIW, it reads pretty heated to me. As someone not really convinced of the necessity of a new thread, I feel like I'm about to be accused of kicking someone's puppy.

"Every new thread threatens to destroy the community" seems to me to be an unnecessarily emotional argument, on the verge of accusing new- thread-proposers of kicking puppies.

I think this is what Drew means when he says the positions are so far apart from each other as to make compromise almost impossible.

Does it help if it is restated as, "Thread proliferation has the potential to change the culture and nature of the community to the point that, while it may still be a healthy community, it is not the community I joined, nor the community in which I feel comfortable and neighborly and chatty."

I think that's a clearer, more understandable way of putting it.

I still don't agree with it, but I understand it better.

See? Calm.

- I feel like I'm about to be accused of kicking someone's puppy.

The only question would be- who would get swept up for defending? The poor mistreated puppy, or the poor misunderstood kicker?

I read your statement to mean that there is concrete evidence in this community that new threads do not create fracture here, and if that is so I would like to see it.

I see where the disconnect came in there. Yes, I was speaking more generally.

But I think there are examples here, like movies, music, etc, but it's clear that others think that those threads *have* in fact fractured the community.

I still maintain that the fracturing already happened. There are already groups within groups here, and some of those groups never ever speak to each other. That has nothing at all to do with thread creation.

Sean, I'm glad you're actually calm. For my part, I think the reason you sound emotional and dramatic is that you're being very defensive. Because, well, you're on the defense. You're defending your right to a new thread. But it ends up looking like you're backed into a corner by anti-proliferationistas and lashing out to get free.