I agree totally with ita - there's a difference between stuff that affects buffistas.org (the board, the servers, the design) and stuff that affects someor all Buffistas. I also think that's such an obvious distinction - between a social group and a physical entity - that it doesn't need debating. It's like if we all shared ownership of a car. We'd have to vote on what tyres to use, and who got to drive it wehn, but if you wanna have a barbeque for your fellow car-co-owners, then that's your business.

I think that there's a hanging tag in "Quotable" - - because there is white fontedness that doesn't need to be there.

I may want a thread called "Please Search the Net for Photos of Guys I Think Are Cute and Post Them Here For Me." but that would be of interest to, well, me, and use a lot of community resources.

Scrappy is brilliant. After we vote in the Minear thread (not to reveal my biases or anything) I am so proposing a Drool Streaks thread. Just you wait. It'll be oh so popular and the summer will just fly on by.

Yeah, Burrell. I can hear it now.

dh: Cindy, why does the browser's history always show up empty?

Cindy: Um... I'm not using the computer?

dh: No. Really.

So, I've tried like three times this morning to post thoughts on the latest rounds of discussion, and I keep rambling off into pointlessness and deleting.

So, at the risk of not having a point or anything to add, here are the points I keep deleting, in no particular order...

I am one of the people who voted for voting and now regrets that decision. I don't know that the new process is helping us, and I do feel similar to Kat and Allyson, and some others as well, that instead the voting process has merely formalized and institutionalized the hand-wringing and marginalization that makes people unhappy.

I don't know what to do about it.

I think Kat may be right that maybe we just need some moderators.

I continue to feel like an ass for having opposed the creation of a Tim thread so vociferously. I now wish I had not done that. I now think that Allyson is right and we should just create it without having to wait two weeks and talk about it for four days before we actually get around to doing it.

...

I have other thoughts that also probably do not contribute any solutions, but I will post them when I can get those into some coherent order as well.

I continue to feel like an ass for having opposed the creation of a Tim thread so vociferously. I now wish I had not done that. I now think that Allyson is right and we should just create it without having to wait two weeks and talk about it for four days before we actually get around to doing it.

Sean, with all due respect, this really bugs me. You have no reason to feel like an ass for opposing the creation of the Tim thread, and your reasons were valid and not at all asswipish (although I can't refer to them because you've removed them, which squicks me as well since it makes my post which agrees with you completely irrelevant.) You have every right to change your position on this, but you now make it seem like anyone who agreed with your original position is also an ass.

In light of all the discussion in lightbulb about the difficulties of undoing an affirmative decision, I think we need to proceed cautiously before just opening up a thread because it seems like the right thing to do. And considering that Wonderfalls won't be on the air until at least the Fall, and I think it's actually a midseason replacement, why are we feeling like this thread needs to be opened up today. now. immediately?

This just contributes to the feeling that if you dare to disagree with the popular stance people will think you're an ass for making a fuss. Is that really how we want things to work?

Uh, Kat and I have the most unpopular stance in the place, and I feel not like an ass. The thread is not a Wonderfalls thread, as I've stated about three million, five hundred, and eighty seven times, but an all-purpose Tim thread.

You have no reason to feel like an ass for opposing the creation of the Tim thread

This sort of comment tends to raise tempers. What Sean feels is up to him.

This just contributes to the feeling that if you dare to disagree with the popular stance people will think you're an ass for making a fuss. Is that really how we want things to work?

IMHO, that is real life. People talk. After awhile, when it becomes clear that the talkers can't agree, they say something like "Let's agree to disagree" or they change the subject.

In real life, when a relative of mine won't stop making a fuss, I think he's a jerk. (Assuming life, limb, or money isn't at stake.)

FWIW, Sean, I wasn't sure what your original opposition was to the thread.

FWIW, Sean, I think your no-tim-thread argument had some merit, and I'm sorry to hear you're deleting it (or have done so). Not least because you've got a right to say it, and I don't want you to feel pressured not to say something just because you think it'll be unpopular.

And you know what? I would feel disenfranchised if we went off and created threads willynilly without talking it out first. I want to talk it out, and see if, you know, we can compromise on things, or at least I can get a better understanding of why people think differently on an issue. Voting is just a formal expression of the informal caucusing we used to do. (Probably not much of a net gain/loss of posts, either.)

You know what else? I'm confused. I've seen several different people in the past 3-4 days talking as if we're in the middle of a crisis. Are we in the middle of a crisis and I just haven't noticed, or is this tired-with-the-slow-process talking, or is there something else going on that is making Bureau/Light Bulb feel less inviting or functional for people? Basically, I guess I'm wondering what specifically has triggered the Bureau/Light Bulb pessimism I've seen in the past 4 days, which seems to be a different and far more specific pessimism than generally. Anyone want to enlighten me?