I responded to your skepticism, Miracleman responded to it, Raq responded to it, and billytea responded to it.

I read through the following 150 posts trying to find responses before I posted that link, and I'm sorry, but I just didn't see any. There were two jokey posts about Hec, cats and baseball, and then a separate (but surprisingly productive!) discussion about testing gamer talk in Other Media.

I wasn't happy to see the creation of Minearverse, because I wasn't in a place where I could watch his shows real time (if not for years). So I couldn't go in there (spoilers), but several people I like reading spent more and more time in there, and less in threads where I was.

This happened with me and the Music thread, and also with Comedy and Procedurals. The conversations I was having in Natter and the people I was having them with are now simply missing from my board experience.

And there's my anti-proliferationist default setting in a nutshell.

I think our procedure is a good one (alebeit this time a bit of the "bureaucracy" portion of the discussion leaked into "lightbulbs").

I know little to nothing about gaming. And if periodic gaming conversations started poppin up in Natter I would start to figure it out with other half and un informed people. If there is a thread it will continue to be a mystery to me because going into a thread of "experts" is rarely fun.

Part of what is making my anti-prolif default kick in is that I haven't seen any gaming discussion that has begun to make a thread unweildy and started to (essentially) form a thread within a thread. THAT is when my anti sense backs down and says "yeah, time for a new thread. bye-bye _______ chunk of people"

And its still sad when that does happen. For the sake of sheer volume it probably was necessary to create the music thread -- but to this day I miss music in general discussion and there are several people (::kermit waves to Joe Boucher and Jon B::) who I rarely see anymore.

If, for example, we have a gaming thread Billytea may (between timezones and life busyness) disappear off the rest of the board.

If, for example, we have a gaming thread Billytea may (between timezones and life busyness) disappear off the rest of the board.

What if we get billytea to promise to stop by Bitches once a day?

Seriously, this issue seems to be of little concern to me. It's not like we only have so many posts we can use in a day and now billytea's gonna blow his quota in the new thread. I know I bop from thread to thread and rarely spend ALL my time in just one. The only threads I'm not checking out are ones in which I have no interest (Music...hey, I'm a freak, I listen almost exclusively to movie scores) and the TV threads (either I'm not watching the shows, don't wanna risk the spoilage or am not watching with enough interest to get my lazy fingers to type about it.) Other than that I'm in Natter, I'm in Bitches, I'm in Tech, I'm in GWW and Literary and etc. etc.

Gamers are obsessive, but not THAT obessive.

Part of what is making my anti-prolif default kick in is that I haven't seen any gaming discussion that has begun to make a thread unweildy and started to (essentially) form a thread within a thread. THAT is when my anti sense backs down and says "yeah, time for a new thread. bye-bye _______ chunk of people"

I'd just like to say that I do think "I think XX would be really fun and make for some great conversations" should have some legitimacy as a rationale for thread creation, even though I do think the high hurdles are both necessary and good. I'd love to get away from the "you only get a thread if you prove disruptive" idea - I think in the long run that may be as damaging as anything else.

but to this day I miss music in general discussion and there are several people (::kermit waves to Joe Boucher and Jon B::) who I rarely see anymore.

You're sweet, Trudy. Thanks. (::kermit waves back ::) I'm repeating myself, but having a Music thread doesn't keep me out of Natter; the sheer volume of posts keeps me out.

i'm someone who enjoys the smaller specific threads. simply because i can keep up with them. i've done a pretty good job lately of keeping up with Natter, but i tend to lurk more than i post. usually because a coversation i would have wanted to participate in is long over or because i just have nothing to say. i would love to be able to keep up with every thread on the board, but it's just not feasible and it would be even less feasible if they were all in one big thread.

I had to make a choice way back when... Bitches or Natter? i chose Natter simply because it seemed to be the slower mover of the two. i hate that i'm probably missing things in Bitches, but such is life when we have as many active posters as we do.

oh and i'm someone who lurked a bunch during the Firefly days, but didn't register until Wonderfalls. sometimes when the influx thing is brought up i feel a bit unwanted. but i get over it and remember the great people who are here.

(sorry if this is disjointed. i'm trying to post and work at the same time.)

I'm repeating myself, but having a Music thread doesn't keep me out of Natter; the sheer volume of posts keeps me out.

This is me.

sometimes when the influx thing is brought up i feel a bit unwanted

This also.

is that I haven't seen any gaming discussion that has begun to make a thread unweildy and started to (essentially) form a thread within a thread.

I made a post along these lines sometime late last night. Part of the reason you'll most likely never see that happen with gaming is because a few of the core folks interest in the gaming thread just don't follow the bigger threads that closely and find it very difficult to pick a thread of conversation out when there are 30-60 other posts in between each line of the gaming conversation. Without a gaming thread I'll probably stick to the half assed way I do it now, if I see Sean or MM on IM I'll ask some questions. If it applies to someone else we send an email to them. No real chance for anyone else to pop in, which is too bad.

This is part of why Buffistechnology works in my view. If you ask why WinXP isn't working in Natter, if someone who can answer it isn't there within 10 or 15 posts of your question there's a very good chance it will get lost. If you ask in Tech, it could be a day later, but since there have only been 20 posts total, there is a much higher likelyhood that someone will see it and answer it.

What if we get billytea to promise to stop by Bitches once a day?

It's just a what-if in an example sort of way.

You're sweet, Trudy. Thanks. (::kermit waves back ::) I'm repeating myself, but having a Music thread doesn't keep me out of Natter; the sheer volume of posts keeps me out.

Well, yes and no... if there were no music thread you might well suck/search Natter and do music that way. Again, these are "ifs"

Billytea, Jon B are just people who came to the top of my head. There wasn't a whole lot of analysis, they're just examples and there are surely other people I've lost track of similarly.

I'd just like to say that I do think "I think XX would be really fun and make for some great conversations" should have some legitimacy as a rationale for thread creation, even though I do think the high hurdles are both necessary and good.

I think XX may have a legitimacy of its own too. I've just not seen it so far in this instance.

I'd love to get away from the "you only get a thread if you prove disruptive" idea - I think in the long run that may be as damaging as anything else.

I don't think of it as "disruptive" so much as a tipping-point with an interest level. "Gee, we basically have two threads going on here now, lets talk about splitting them". (This conversation, of course, can be good or very very very very veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery bad)

I had to make a choice way back when... Bitches or Natter? i chose Natter simply because it seemed to be the slower mover of the two.

Really? I always thought Natter was the faster one, which is why I've usually kept out of it, but I'm trying to get back into it since that's where all the action seems to be.

oh and i'm someone who lurked a bunch during the Firefly days, but didn't register until Wonderfalls. sometimes when the influx thing is brought up i feel a bit unwanted.

Thritto. Also, I didn't realize you first started posting because of Wonderfalls too.