I think making changes should be doable and difficult. It's a good way to govern.

Yes. This.

And may I tell you, reading all the discussion on this topic in one go? Probably not the wisest idea I had. For one thing, I am now running late for work.

Here are my two cents on the matter, not that they're worth much in this economy:

Cent One: Whatever decision we make, someone is going to be unhappy with that decision. There's nothing that can be done about that. I wish there could, but there isn't. A solution that will make the board a better place for Poster 1 might effectively cut Poster 2 out of a discussion he or she would otherwise participate in. That situation can be created by making a new thread, and it can be created by deciding not to make a new thread. There is no easy answer; the best we can hope for is to minimize the pain.

Cent Two: I am not a preservationist, nor do I like having too many new threads. Personally, I like having a mix of bucket and non-bucket threads. I'm not 100% pleased with how some of those threads have been parsed out (I like talking about/reading others post about music, but not enough to keep on top of the music thread, and so I miss out. For example.).

Crap--I really do need to leave. I have more to say, but it will have to wait as b.org is blocked at work. Would suggestions for how to examine thread creation (in general) be best addressed here or in Bureacracy?

I have no idea what caused these splinter communities to happen, other than some of us just don't like others of us very much.

The way I see it is:

1: Underwater Basket Weaving Thread is voted into existance.

2: Underwater Basket Weaving fans from across the interwebs join B.org to discuss their favorite hobby but don't venture out further. UWB thread develops its own unique personality and subculture.

3: Since I don't have any particular interest in underwater basket weaving, I never bother to subscribe to that thread and have no way of knowing one way or another whether I'd like those people or not. Hell, if they never come out and post in Natter or some other broad-topic thread, I'll never know they exist at all.

And it's not me being petty and antiproliferationist that keeps me out of the narrow-topic threads, it's just that I have a limited amount of time and attention to spend here. I can't subscribe to everything I might want to, and the narrow-topic low-volume threads are the easiest to let go of first. (I used to subscribe to every single Buffista thread just on principle, and it just about broke me both mentally and emotionally. So these days I have to pick and choose, the better to preserve my sanity.)

I know you don't mean it as such, but that is the part that comes across as "I don't care what you want, I am against you for the sake of..." I don't know? What? Spite? I don't understand.

Oh hell, Sean, I am not against you. Or against MiracleMan or ND or anyone else who wants this or any other thread to exist or not exist. I like you all very much as people. I do not necessarily have to like each and every one of your ideas.

I am against willy-nilly thread creation and in favor of examining each new thread on a case by case basis to examine its potential effects on what I view this community to be. In this case, you have an interest in getting this thread created. And I'm sorry to be on the opposite side of that, but it is not personal and never has been.

2: Underwater Basket Weaving fans from across the interwebs join B.org to discuss their favorite hobby but don't venture out further. UWB thread develops its own unique personality and subculture.

I understand this concern, but have we actually seen this happen in any existing threads? I'm not challenging the statement -- I'm honestly curious.

Also, thanks, Sophia for volunteering!

ita, let me know when votes@ has been redirected to Sophia.

I don't like reading all at once either.

Some cents

1. I think billytea is right on the money when he says that the end of Buffy/Angel is when splintering happened, because of course, we don't have one central thing that we all agree on to talk about it. So now the main threads are natter and Bitches, which is actually, I think, where the main splintering is

2. I think another cause of splintering is just growth. Right now, I find natter and bitches overwhelming, but not by one thing, just the volume of things. And I often feel left out because so many people know each other in real life, so I feel a little bit (I doubt this is true) that bitches is one group of friends that know each other, and natter is another, and I am just an interloper. So I prefer to post on topics.

3. I think that people who, in general, want threads are trying to, in some ways, recreate us having an essential thing tying us together, and nothing really catches.

4. I think that people, in general, who don't want threads created, also want to tie us together, by keeping us close.

5. I, personally, think that eventually, trying to tie us together in big threads will just lead to people who can't keep up leaving the community, because they can't keep up, ultimately defeating the desire to keep us close.

6. I really should post this in bureaucracy, because this has almost nothing to do with the gaming thread, which I don't really care either way about

7. I think perhaps we should revisit either the number of days one can talk or the amount of talking we can do when voting, because one of the reasons pro-voting was that we could stop having the same arguments wiht the same people over and over.

and

2: Underwater Basket Weaving fans from across the interwebs join B.org to discuss their favorite hobby but don't venture out further. UWB thread develops its own unique personality and subculture.

I don't really think, with the exception of Firefly, which is within the charter of the board, that this influx of new people has ever really happened. I mean, I don't see anyone in music or movies or comedy or procedurals that was not once part of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Bitches or Natter. I do understand that it is a real fear, however, and I don't want to make light of it.

I understand this concern, but have we actually seen this happen in any existing threads? I'm not challenging the statement -- I'm honestly curious.

It happened with Firefly, and again (to a lesser extent) with Wonderfalls/Minearverse.

And it doesn't have to be a *huge* influx of new members to have an effect - to continue my example above, say poster A invites his/her friends B, C, and D to join because they are just massive underwater basketweaving fans. Then C invites E, F, and G, and so on. There's nothing at all wrong with any of that except gradually we've got a thread where a substantial portion of the posters are newbies who never venture out of that thread. And that changes the shape of the community at large.

And to repeat myself for the umpteenth time, that may not be a bad thing. (More likely, it will be a bad thing for some people and a good thing for others.) But it is worth acknowledging.

3. I think that people who, in general, want threads are trying to, in some ways, recreate us having an essential thing tying us together, and nothing really catches.

4. I think that people, in general, who don't want threads created, also want to tie us together, by keeping us close.

I think these are both true and important points.

Okay, so...the Final Wording of the proposal:

I propose the creation of a Gaming Thread (clever title to come later), in which people could discuss games: board, LARP, MMORPG, video, tabletop RPG, game theory etc. etc. and all attendant news, developments and ancillary subjects thereof. All would be welcome to chime in, talk about their favorite games or learn about gaming of any sort. This thread could also be used for coordinating/scheduling games either online or IRL and could serve as a cooperative resource for people playing games.

For most of my thoughts on all of this, I'm just going to do the point-and-not what-Billytea-said. I have very few cents, and my work internet is screwy this morning.

I do want to address the problem of underwater basketweavers from across the internets, though: The thing that brought out the Firefly explosions (and a few similar smaller things) was Tim, That Magnificent Bastard. We had goodies that other boards didn't have and that random (then-)strangers out there wanted. In the case of a gaming thread, it's almost exactly the opposite. There are a million other places out there to talk gaming; the thing they don't have is Buffistas, and honestly, we're a lot less likely to get slashdotted. I honestly don't see any influx in this case at all -- the other underwater basketweavers out there really don't care.

And, as I said back at the beginning of this, before I inconveniently disappeared for the rest of the discussion, y'all know that I'm normally wildly anti-proliferation. I'm not proposing any willy-nillyness, or indeed any kind of nilly other than the one we already have. But this is a case where we do have a group of people who are already part of the community who want to have the discussion.

I do want to address the problem of underwater basketweavers from across the internets, though

THANK YOU. That's really all I was asking. And I think your points are good ones.