We had a conversation in chat about a month or two ago, now. We were talking about ships and the various groups within the fandom. People had various opinions regarding what ship/faction is the largest and many seemed to base it on the amount of chatter generated online by each group. But I don’t think the amount of ‘noise’ a group makes means they represent a large group or a small group – they represent the loudest parts of each group only. And when the loudest start to become negative, it can really intimidate and sour others’ opinions and desire to contribute. I know the 2nd half of S3 really upset many fans, and others who weren’t as upset didn’t really know how to react or how to best acknowledge other members’ feelings here. But if in this one forum, we as members can try to keep a positive outlook in the general threads, and keep the venting and griping to their individual thread, it is possible for us to have the discussions and even debates many seem to want to have. I know toward the end of S3 we had a pretty good number of lurkers post and those of us more active on the thread really encouraged it — so I think sometimes it just takes members encouraging and being positive to get others to emerge and also share opinions in a positive way.
There have been a number of non-CS conversations in the CS thread that were excellent debates — and I couldn’t help thinking how great it would be to get the opinions of non-CSers as well…but that wasn’t going to happen if they aren’t in the thread to see the discussion in the first place. I think it’s just a matter of people actively promoting conversation outside of ‘ship context. It can be difficult, and I don’t think it needs to be purely the mods who encourage non-shipping conversations. But the more people just keep quiet, and don’t contribute, the easier it is for people who are going to talk to stay in their comfort zone.
RG – you made the new thread that points out some non-shipping threads – thank you! Maybe, though, it could be named something like character threads or non-shipping threads to really stand out to members so we know where to go to maybe reactivate the discussions in more appropriate places? (You know how we all love to ask the mods instead of look! Myself included! But maybe people would be drawn to them if it were clear as day? 🙂 )