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

it was made pretty clear pretty fast that "Atlantic Canadians" is sacred.

Yes. As a matter of fact, as soon as you guys who post in the thread spoke up, my recollection is that it was immediately taken off the chopping block, whereas the three TV threads were combined into one despite some objections from the various residents.

I guess I've just missed your point. Were you trying to show how the people who post in Bureau run over the rest of the board? If so, I can certainly see how it would have been disconcerting to suddenly hear that a thread you post in was being considered for deletion, but as Lyra said, we don't do anything these days without announcing it in Press. Sometimes more than once.

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.

Megan, you were not the only one who spoke up for the AC thread. I'll find you the cites but I remember many people saying that the AC thread was a subcommunity and should certainly not be closed. There's nothing wrong with someone suggesting it, and there's nothing wrong with a bunch of people protesting it. What matters is, it was not closed.

(Unlike the Spoilers lite thread. Crazy thread closers.)

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.

Did it get defensive? I kind of dismissed that notion of closing the Canadian thread because I was conscious of what a rooted community that represented here. I would have fought vigorously against it because I'd feel like the lot of you would've been disenfranchised.

We've had to deal with a lot of issues related to thread-closure, but on the whole I think there's been respect for the idea that certain threads have their own vibe and that needs to be respected. I thought it was a huge deal with the Smallville and Farscape threads merged. Those were very distinct cultures with their own history. I appreciated the sacrifice made by the people who allowed it for the good of the entire board. Of course, now it's a Stargate thread, but that's another topic.

And this is how pile-ons happen. Crazy x-posts.

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.

I was just expressing my personal perception of the board. Maybe this is because I'm not in any show threads any more due to broadcast times/dates. Or maybe I just more sensative to debates, or doing less skimming. who knows?

And this is how pile-ons happen.

A pile-on of Krazy Atlantic Canadian Loooove.

Are you seeing specific posters doing the latter here? You seem to have given that impression to several people here, myself included.

That impression would be accurate. Yes. A few posters are definately quite selfish and unwilling to accomodate the wishes and needs of others, and instead persistently require others to accomodate their wants and opinions.

It would be neither here nor there, if that were the extent of it. However good posters are negatively impacted by it. Perhaps even more importantly in the long run, the very character and core strengths of *this* board (openness, intelligence, humour, comraderie , accpetance) are being gradually worn away because it continues, grows increasingly more common, and remains unacknowledged. And given the *ahem* tone of some of the denial seen when the issue is even suggested, it may have become accepted.

Please note - I'm not suggesting that anyone is evil, bad or wrong - not the newbies, not the soft-spoken folk, and not the activists or memes. Nor am I suggesting any new change to this forum, the board, life, liberty, happiness or the New Jersey Nets.

I am simply suggesting that there has occured a subtle (or not so subtle depending on your perspective) shift in the discourse here, and that it has become one sided, and that good people are bleeding away.

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

And how many stayed?

I am not sure that those are answerable in a braod sense. I left the board as a whole, I think 2 years ago and for about 6 months. I was annoyed with the minutia debates in the show threads, a few personalities, and I think an influx of people had just happened.

I left Bureau twice. Once before the voting discussion was in full swing and once after I had proposed a vote on, I think, a warning, suspension, and banning procedure. I left both times becuase the endless back and forth without any concession on points was making insane. In fact, my whole point in coming in to propose the vote I did was because I was sick of hearing about the endless discussion.

Unfortunately, the topic at hand is not something that can be written up into a proposal and voted on. People have vastly different opinions about what is good for the board, people have vastly different tolerances for debate and tone, people get their feelings hurt at different points, and people leave for different reasons.

I'm gonna go away now. I have work to do. It's not personal! Let the debate continue...

*flys away from bureaucracy to policyland*