But...who left? When? After what?

And how many stayed?

I don't feel like anyone is forcing anyone else to get involved with the bureaucratic stuff.

No, no one is but sometimes you can't just sit back and be quiet.

Here's my example. Someone a while back posted that they thought we should close the Atlantic Canadians thread when Buffy ended. No one thought to even ask the posters there if suggesting this would be ok. Someone had to email me and draw my attention to the posts in this thread to let me know that the thread I post most in was being considered for closure. I spoke up here and everyone got very defensive.

Sue and Megan, thanks for coming in here and speaking up.

Not all activism is bad. When it is done with the good of the board in mind - it's excellent.

Therein lies the rub. I don't think anyone who is a so-called activist poster is agitating for anything but the good of the board. The problem lies in the fact that people have different definitions of "the good of the board".

Also? Every member of a collective, at one point or another, feels marginalized. I have, and I'm a fairly long-term poster (on and off since TT). I've left threads because of it. Did it suck? Yes. Do I miss what it used to be? Yes. But people change and communities change and other people won't like it but that's the way it is.

So, while I'm appreciative of the chance to step back and reflect on my behavior as a poster and on the behavior of the board as a whole (and I am), I do not understand quite what we're supposed to do about this entire issue.

edit: Bloody hell. So very late. Sorry. But my points stand, and I *am* appreciating the discussion, and I would like to have concrete ideas on how to proceed.

Would Rafmun naming specific people or incidents be anything but inflamatory in the extreme?

No less inflammatory than the comments already made. Since most people posting don't seem to be persuaded, it needs to be brought to that level. I don't think names need to be named, but I DO think we need at least one example of a change forced by the GO14 that is bad for the board as a whole. Because without that, the whole argument fails.

My point is Buffy at TT/WX and b.org used to be about discussion of shows. Now that they are ending there is more and more debate about the goings on on the board.

We started nattering before we even left TT. By the time we got to WX, my experience was that the show threads were not the essential portion of my experience among Buffistas. And again, I've been deeply active in Bureaucracy discussions since back at WX when we were trying create b.org.

Which is not to discount your experience, Megan, just that for me, the show threads haven't been the core of my experience here since TT.

She is the only one that can decide to change it.

Stompys can change taglines too. IJS. But you'd have to send me a lifetime supply of cookies.

My point is Buffy at TT/WX and b.org used to be about discussion of shows. Now that they are ending there is more and more debate about the goings on on the board.

With all due respect to Megan, I don't see this at all. At least not since b.org started. These board discussions come in waves, but I haven't noticed them arising with greater frequency or ferver than in the past.

What Shawn Said.

Someone a while back posted that they thought we should close the Atlantic Canadians thread when Buffy ended. No one thought to even ask the posters there if suggesting this would be ok.

I understand why that would be upsetting. I'm not sure if this is what you're thinking of, but a few months back the board was having major bandwidth/connectivity problems (a techie could put it better), and every low-volume thread was on the chopping block. We ended up losing Spoilers Lite and combined a bunch of TV threads and fic threads; IIRC, it was made pretty clear pretty fast that "Atlantic Canadians" is sacred.

But any thread additions or deletions do need to go to a Press-announced (and Lightbulb-debated) vote, so it's not something that could happen without the Atlantic Canadians getting any notice. Still, you're right that it could have been brought to the threads involved sooner.

Someone a while back posted that they thought we should close the Atlantic Canadians thread when Buffy ended. No one thought to even ask the posters there if suggesting this would be ok.

That's probably because someone immediately posted saying that it was a bad idea because the thread had developed its own subcommunity. I don't remember "defensive" responses; I remember people telling you not to worry because by the time you posted, the idea had been dropped.

Caveat: My memory may be faulty, but that's honestly how I recall things went down.

t edited for clarity