"Whole season discussion" spoiler condition flag

June 25, 2015 2:18 PM

Idea for handling the emerging "Bingers Dilemma". So when a new season of OITNB or House of Cards or what have you is released, you could have your episode threads as usual plus another thread for those who want to discuss the season as a whole. That everyone can discuss the show at their own pace - - bingers can discuss right away without having to wait or flood FanFare with episode posts just to get to the end - savorers can add episode threads organically as people are ready for them without having to wade through the bingers' flood. Episode threads would retain spoiler-free policy of course.
posted by bleep (9 comments total)

Thanks for the suggestion, we'll give it some thought. We don't currently have a mechanism for having a post about a season—that's something we'd need to build and put some thought into how we'd organize.

We've definitely heard this suggestion before (not just for series that are released in a single day) and it's something we're thinking about.
posted by pb at 5:56 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think this fragments it too much. In theory. In practice, who knows? Maybe this is a great idea. Interested in others' opinions.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 5:56 PM on June 25, 2015

It might also be worth reading this recent discussion of binge vs. savor to see where people are at on it.
posted by pb at 5:58 PM on June 25, 2015

I was just thinking if we can have theoretically 6 threads about each Game of Thrones episode, 1 more thread for a whole season isn't that bad. It would use all the existing mechanisms (threads, spoiler conditions).
posted by bleep at 7:55 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

The question we keep asking ourselves is—how do we encourage good discussions on FanFare? The number of threads for a particular show or episode doesn't necessarily relate to how good the discussion is. The traffic at FanFare is not as high as the traffic at MetaFilter or Ask MetaFilter. So in many cases, getting all interested people into the same space near the same time is more of a challenge here. I think that's especially true with binge shows where everyone is watching them at a different pace. Having more threads about a particular show doesn't necessarily help with getting people together.
posted by pb at 8:06 AM on June 26, 2015

Ya, this is why I suggested it. Not just like "Oh I know what about MORE THREADS??" For Orange Is The New Black there was very little discussion on the episode threads because once you've seen the whole thing it's hard to limit your comments to just the events of that episode. So a lot of people waited until the finale thread, by which point you're talking about something you saw several weeks ago. My theory is that if those who binged didn't have to wait for the finale thread, there would be more and richer discussion because it would be immediate and fresh in their minds.
posted by bleep at 9:28 AM on June 26, 2015

This definitely needs to happen. Navigating the Sense8 threads was the first time I'd dealt with the dilemma, and as someone who pushed for and appreciated a slower pace for episode posts it's very clear to me now that the best thing for the site - i.e., the thing that would most encourage participation - is for there to be near-simultaneous postings of a complete series/bingers thread and a beginning first-episode series watching thread. It's difficult for me to imagine a splitting that would be worse than making bingers wait for weeks to discuss a series, as we saw with Sense8. I think there were a lot of folks who binged but declined to participate in individual episode threads because of how hard it is to recall exactly which scenes took place in which episodes after a binge-watch. I felt that myself toward the end, when I got 1-2 episodes ahead of the posts (and have now finished and am waiting to discuss the season). It's a weird little problem, for sure, but, having experienced it from both sides over the last couple of weeks, I'm convinced dual binging and episodic threads are the best solution.
posted by mediareport at 10:30 PM on June 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

So a lot of people waited until the finale thread, by which point you're talking about something you saw several weeks ago. My theory is that if those who binged didn't have to wait for the finale thread, there would be more and richer discussion because it would be immediate and fresh in their minds.

For me as a binger, the other big issue with trying to discuss individual episodes, especially of a fairly fast-paced show with lots of characters like OITNB, after watching them all is trying to keep what happens in each episode straight to make sure I don't inadvertently drop a big-ass spoiler by accidentally mentioning an Episode 8 event in the Episode 6 thread, etc. This year, I actually made occasional notes -- if something came up that seemed like a thing I might mention in FF, I noted it and its episode number. Having a "whole season" thread would obviate all of that.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:16 PM on June 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

What if the Finale thread were posted at the same time as the Episode 1 thread?

Since the Finale threads tend to be where the "full season discussion" goes anyways, why artificially delay the discussion when you can just have it earlier?
posted by sparklemotion at 8:57 AM on June 30, 2015