Expanding FanFare to More Shows

May 6, 2014 2:14 PM

Thanks to the tireless efforts of pb, we're now able to start opening FanFare up to more shows. You'll see a few more shows listed on the New Post page, as well as a link to add additional shows. New shows will go through an approval process like episodes do currently (here's what a search on a show title looks like). I'd like to ask everyone upfront not to just go in and add every show you can think of, but to add shows you are ready to make posts right now about that you expect people will join you on.

So think 24: Live Another Day and Louie, which both debuted last night and current seasons of shows instead of every 1970s sitcom that people can't easily watch and aren't likely to comment on. I'd also ask that people hold off on adding old seasons of our current shows until we get things more in order.

Finally, we added FanFare to the site nav so you can easily get to it without having to type in the domain.

We're still working on expanding the archive page to be able to handle new shows (we'll have specific pages for each show), and eventually when this settles down in a couple weeks we'll start cranking on general discussion posts that can live alongside episode show posts.

posted by mathowie (staff) to Feature Requests at 2:14 PM (376 comments total)

You can't see me, pb, but I'm raising a glass to you right now. Yay!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:20 PM on May 6, 2014

Yay! This is great. Thank you!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:22 PM on May 6, 2014

God damn titles. I curse you and the day you were forced upon us.
posted by Big_B at 2:22 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

So Game of Thrones didn't ruin it for the rest of us! Thank God.
posted by Think_Long at 2:24 PM on May 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

yay! while you're doin stuff, can you add the madmen tag to the latest thread?

yea that's all I care about so what
posted by sweetkid at 2:24 PM on May 6, 2014

Let's do Fargo!
posted by triggerfinger at 2:28 PM on May 6, 2014 [10 favorites]

Why does a Mad Men post need a madmen tag?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:28 PM on May 6, 2014

Why does a Mad Men post need a madmen tag?

all the other ones had it? and so we can see them all together? Anyway it has it now...thanks.
posted by sweetkid at 2:30 PM on May 6, 2014

We're working on show pages, here's the one for Mad Men, just linking it in various places now.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:31 PM on May 6, 2014

Game of Thrones, Season 20: Episode 17. Everyone is dead. The direwolves inherit the planet.
posted by desjardins at 2:32 PM on May 6, 2014 [15 favorites]

Ok show pages would work for me. Didn't mean to poop on the thread, but fanfare is really hard to use for those old schoolers with titles=0.
posted by Big_B at 2:33 PM on May 6, 2014

Huh, I thought you could search by a tag across all subsites, but I guess not.

Too bad I'm not watching Person of Interest anymore. That would have been a great show to talk about on here back in the first couple seasons.
posted by ODiV at 2:34 PM on May 6, 2014

How are you going to navigate to the show pages? Sidebar?
posted by Big_B at 2:34 PM on May 6, 2014

Awesome! clever show suggestion matrix too.

...Can we get a non-white background now? >_<
posted by emptythought at 2:39 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

How are you going to navigate to the show pages?

They're linked on the archive page and on thread pages in the top.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:39 PM on May 6, 2014

I would like to start a thread about The Good Wife, but I'm wondering: is it OK for the first thread about a show to be used as a sort of "catch up" for discussing the whole season/series?

Yeah, we don't have general discussion posts supported yet, just specific episode posts, so this won't quite work for now, but will in a few weeks. You could do a recap post for the latest episode though.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:41 PM on May 6, 2014

You made this announcement fifteen minutes after the first Eurovision semi-final ended. This US bias has gone too far. Too far, I say!
posted by Kattullus at 2:44 PM on May 6, 2014 [14 favorites]

instead of every 1970s sitcom that people can't easily watch and aren't likely to comment on.

*cry*
posted by Melismata at 2:46 PM on May 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

You can pick your favorite 70s sitcom, just not all the 70s sitcoms!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:47 PM on May 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

I requested this previously, but now that there's a format that it doesn't fit, here goes a request and a suggestion:

Professional wrestling, specifically the WWE product, has two flagship weekly shows (Raw and Smackdown), several secondary shows (Main Event, Superstars), a "minor league" (NXT), a reality show (Total Divas) and a more-or-less monthly pay-per-view event (e.g., WrestleMania) that's really the main product that all the other stuff supports.

Would it be possible to add a show called something like "WWE Programming" with a monthly "episode" tied to the pay-per-view event?
posted by Etrigan at 2:48 PM on May 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Hey, I love Sanford and Son and What's Happenin' but if someone put up the Doobie Brothers episode of What's Happenin' I don't think there'd be much to comment on. I feel like in practice this site is going to be most successful on current shows after they air.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:48 PM on May 6, 2014

How would we do something like House of Cards where everything is consumed in a weekend?
posted by hellojed at 2:48 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

When I suggest Eurovision, all I get is a list of shows, none of which are Eurovision! *blubbers*
posted by Kattullus at 2:50 PM on May 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Netflix shows can all go up on the same day, sure. My hope is that we follow the loose rules we've come up with so far, no spoilers on above-the-fold descriptions so people can avoid the threads until they've seen the episodes.

Orange is the New Black starts the next season on June 6th, so yeah stuff can go up as soon as someone wants to make a post about it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:50 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

A season's worth of single episode threads that people can progress through at their own pace, I'd think. With the way the spoiler policy has shaken out I can't imagine a full-season topic going up the day the season hits and the mods just saying "have at it."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:50 PM on May 6, 2014

So is the episode posting left up to the poster(s)? Like if I wanted to start with Arrested Development S01E01, would it be up to the community at large to follow up?
posted by griphus at 2:50 PM on May 6, 2014

Etrigan, I don't think Pro Wrestling fits the episodic TV model, and is probably a better fit for Sportsfilter.com.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:51 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

So is the episode posting left up to the poster(s)? Like if I wanted to start with Arrested Development S01E01, would it be up to the community at large to follow up?

Yeah, basically, I think this will work best for current TV show seasons/episodes because I think you'll hear a lot of crickets on older seasons of stuff people can barely remember. When we have discussion posts, I think we can use them to organize things like re-watching parties. cortex and I were talking about maybe watching Star Trek The Original Series (which I've never actually watched a full episode of in my life) every Monday night (they're all on Netflix) and then someone makes a post each week and everyone follows along.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:53 PM on May 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

WWE feels like it belongs more with The Good Wife than it does with NHL playoffs, but maybe that's just me.

Speaking of WWE, if someone were to do a post about the new WWE digital streaming service, the inner workings, and how that whole launch and first Wrestlemania thing went on it, I'd totally read it.
posted by ODiV at 2:53 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Etrigan, I don't think Pro Wrestling fits the episodic TV model

I don't follow wrestling at all, but this may be a little more nuanced than that insofar as as far as I can tell there sort of is an episodic/narrative thing going on with WWE stuff, silly as it may be. Which is just to say it may be worth talking out in a little more detail down the road, though right now it does seem a little round-peg-square-hole with what we're specifically rolling out today.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:53 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Kattullus, we're using data from IMDb. Can you find the correct show on IMDb and send me the link? I'll take a look and see why it's not coming up via their API.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:54 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

When we have discussion posts, I think we can use them to organize things like re-watching parties.

This was going to be my next question. Glad to see it's in the cards.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:54 PM on May 6, 2014

Yeah the reason I brought up AD specifically was that unlike a lot of older sitcoms, the sort of people inclined to discuss that show episode-by-episode can probably recite half the dialogue from memory.
posted by griphus at 2:55 PM on May 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Etrigan, I don't think Pro Wrestling fits the episodic TV model

I don't follow wrestling at all, but this may be a little more nuanced than that insofar as as far as I can tell there sort of is an episodic/narrative thing going on with WWE stuff, silly as it may be.

It really is much more narrative-driven and episodic than what you'll see on ESPN (also, SportsFilter doesn't talk about it much, which is fine, because it's not really a sport by any definition). In previous discussions of wrestling PPVs here on MeFi, we've discussed it much like shows are being discussed on FF so far -- "Hey, I liked this thing. I hope they do this other thing next." "That would be a bad idea because of reasons." "This thing reminded me of another thing that used to happen and might be important to the current situation; am I remembering that right?"

I understand that it's not a perfect fit at this point. If it's all right, I'll bring it up again once FF is a little more nearly out of beta. If it'll just never happen, feel free to let me know.
posted by Etrigan at 3:04 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

What about shows like Luther or Top of the Lake? Technically, they're done, but still modern and available on Netflix, solo...yeah?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:07 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Netflix shows can all go up on the same day, sure. My hope is that we follow the loose rules we've come up with so far, no spoilers on above-the-fold descriptions so people can avoid the threads until they've seen the episodes.

AHHHH o god does it have to be one thread per episode? Then there's just going to be 10 threads at once.

And i realize this is a Me Thing, but i usually power through shows like that in a couple days max, when they all come out at once like that. Keeping track of what happened in what episode can be daunting if i wanted to follow the rules.

Should people like me only post in the thread for the last episode, where everything that's happened previously is fair game? I feel like it would be a good idea to make the thread for the last episode of a season also be labelled like "General season 3 discussion" or whatever.
posted by emptythought at 3:07 PM on May 6, 2014

Yeah, one post per episode is how the whole site is organized. So during your binge watching, you'd want to take a break and make a post after each one.

If people do end up making 13 posts in a short period of time, we'll start doing things on the front page like auto-collapsing posts under the same show title so the first two pagefulls of the front page at FanFare aren't taken up by one show.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:12 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Keeping track of what happened in what episode can be daunting if i wanted to follow the rules.

It's gonna have to be daunting then, yeah. The nothing-after-this-episode rule is pretty clean and clear, binge watchers will just have to find a way to manage which threads they interact with when.

Should people like me only post in the thread for the last episode, where everything that's happened previously is fair game?

If you're gonna be up to the last episode when you go to comment, then yes!

I feel like it would be a good idea to make the thread for the last episode of a season also be labelled like "General season 3 discussion" or whatever.

I figure when we get as far as adding general discussion threads we can shape up some sort of convention for that to whatever degree people find useful; in the mean time I think that's gonna be the season finale thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:12 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Taking bets on how soon until someone starts posting Firefly episodes...
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:14 PM on May 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

Update: Eurovision will have to live on the Blue at least this year because IMDB classifies it as a TV movie.
posted by Kattullus at 3:35 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

BINGE NETFLIX AND POST AFTER EACH EPISODE YES.
posted by corb at 3:48 PM on May 6, 2014

So, tv-only, right? I just watched "Under the Skin" and I'm still processing it, wanting to ask the bright people here for insights.
posted by Pronoiac at 3:54 PM on May 6, 2014

TV only for now, yeah. Movies is one of the things on the longer-term horizon.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:54 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think, as Big_B suggests, there really needs to be some front-page thread metadata (show title, anyway) for those of us who have thread titles hidden (or, again, a per-subsite preference setting, although I'm not holding my breath on that one).

There's precedent, as categories are exposed here in Metatalk. The same sort of thing but with show title/season/episode instead of category would be optimal, I think.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:55 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh, oh, oh, I can participate now! Thank you!
posted by Kevin Street at 4:05 PM on May 6, 2014

ok, went ahead and removed the title size zero stuff from FanFare. That's the same thing we've always done for Music, IRL, and Jobs. The posts don't make sense there without the title.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:08 PM on May 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for weekly wrestling threads in the future and happy about seeing FF expand past Mad Men and Game of Spoilers.
posted by kimberussell at 4:10 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Oh, hey. To all the people that kept talking about Hannibal this, and Hannibal that...

THANK YOU!! I figured if you all loved it so much I could watch a few minutes and holy moly it's so, so good! Before the first episode was over I wanted to binge-watch it all it just so I can be up to speed when the site opened up. Also, The Americans yay!

Thanks Matt and the Mods!
posted by Room 641-A at 4:15 PM on May 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

24, woo! I was hoping you guys would add that...
posted by adrianhon at 4:18 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cryxercising.

oh lord I do this all the time but had no idea what to call it!

Update: Eurovision will have to live on the Blue at least this year because IMDB classifies it as a TV movie.


; _ ;
posted by winna at 4:20 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

if someone put up the Doobie Brothers episode of What's Happenin' I don't think there'd be much to comment on.

Don't be silly, Matt.
posted by jonmc at 4:22 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Star Trek The Original Series (which I've never actually watched a full episode of in my life

So how long have you been a member of Al Qaeda?

Too many craigyferg episodes for FanFare I fear.
posted by Celsius1414 at 4:28 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

"Too bad I'm not watching Person of Interest anymore. That would have been a great show to talk about on here back in the first couple seasons."

I'd be willing to talk about it. I've actually just been binge watching to catch up from when I abandoned it right at the end of its first season. I've watched 45 episodes in the last couple weeks, watching last week's only a few hours ago. FYI, I think the second season was much better than the first, but the third has been spotty.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:29 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

YISS Aaaaaaaadventure TIME!
posted by ignignokt at 4:30 PM on May 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

Also, The Americans yay!

Thanks Matt and the Mods!

Hahahahaha, yes, sorry I am such a terrible MeMail correspondent! Now I can have other people to disappoint while being obsessed with Soviet assassins and sighing over Keri Russell's shiny beautiful hair.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 4:53 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Just noticed that FF is not tracked on the profile page. Will it be added?
posted by travelwithcats at 4:58 PM on May 6, 2014

FF is not tracked on the profile page. Will it be added?

Eventually, yeah, it should start showing up everywhere.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:16 PM on May 6, 2014

Everywhere! On the street! In the shower! Underneath your dirty laundry!
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:17 PM on May 6, 2014 [10 favorites]

Star Trek The Original Series (which I've never actually watched a full episode of in my life

Does not compute
posted by octothorpe at 5:21 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Would be nice to have this sort of thing for books.
posted by terrapin at 5:26 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

if someone put up the Doobie Brothers episode of What's Happenin' I don't think there'd be much to comment on.

What? Fuck. I'm takin' it to the streets.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:36 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

So... who gets to revoke Matt's nerd card?
posted by desjardins at 5:37 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

ok, went ahead and removed the title size zero stuff from FanFare.

Could we still have the option to ensmallen the titles a bit without having to ensmallen the entire page? I like the titles there but they seem so hugemendous.
posted by elizardbits at 5:40 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Does anyone want to commit to Archer next season? I'd definitely enjoy following such threads...
posted by sara is disenchanted at 5:42 PM on May 6, 2014

Could we still have the option to ensmallen the titles a bit without having to ensmallen the entire page?

No, sorry, the titles are integral to the site just like they are at IRL or Music.
posted by pb (staff) at 5:43 PM on May 6, 2014

I'm a huge fan of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD and I'd love to have some AoS episode discussions here but the show has some special snowflake issues due to being part of Marvel's experiment in transmedia storytelling. I don't think it's obvious how Fanfare's default spoiler policy should apply here as the TV show is explicitly one part of a larger narrative including movies and comics. So I'd like some mod / community input before I post a AoS thread:

1) Given that we still need to work out the issues below, should we hold off having an Agents of SHIELD thread until next week instead of posting one for tonight's episode? Next week is the season finale, so that might be a better episode to start on anyway as we can discuss the whole first season as a unit then start on episode-by-episode discussions next season.

2) By necessity, discussion of current episodes of Agents of SHIELD will include spoilers for Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, as AoS expands upon events of the movies and they all share a common timeline. For example, Captain America: The Winter Soldier takes place between E16 and E17, as is functionally like an E16.5.

How do you advise handling the spoiler scope for this? Would a short note like "Also includes discussion of Marvel Cinematic Universe events up through Captain America: The Winter Soldier" be adequate?

3) Agents of SHIELD technically has some of the same spoiler issues as Game of Thrones, but less so because the comics are more for inspiration than adaption. Plus, the MCU is established as it's own separate universe (Earth-199999) in the Marvel multiverse, drawing characters and plotlines from both the Earth-616 and Earth-1610 universes. And that's not even getting started on all the times various people went back in time and changed things and the various "What if?" scenarios -- there are a LOT of different timelines in play that the show's writers could choose to adapt aspects of.

So is referencing the comics permissible because for the referenced universes' timelines it's a discussion of past events (for example, Earth-616's Tony Stark was originally wounded in the Vietnam War, not Afghanistan) or are they banned because they might be used as inspiration for future plotlines in the MCU/AoS universe (and because in Marvel Time, past events get closer to the present every year) or ...?

IMO, background information about characters, organizations, plotlines, etc. from the comics isn't really spoilers because the MCU/AoS diverge so much that just knowing where they got the idea isn't enough to give away the plot. For example, the central character, Agent Coulson, is native to Earth-199999 (although he became so popular that they've since added him to Earth-616, Earth-8096, and Earth-TRN123), and thus the comics can't spoil the future of a character that doesn't come from the comics in the first place.

4) However, while referencing the comics is unlikely to spoil the show, it could of course spoil the comics for people who haven't read the referenced issues yet. Not sure how to handle this -- I think a blanket "no reference to the comics" rule is going to be difficult to enforce and take a lot of the fun out of discussing the show, but even following the spoiler policy of allowing references to the comic books when discussing past (not future) events could potentially spoil those issues even for people who've seen the episode because it most likely played out differently in the comics.

5) While it might be possible / desirable to ban references to comics covering events in the other Marvel universes, there are some tie-in comics that are explicitly set in Earth-199999. IMO those should be considered fair game for discussion in the AoS threads as they are not spoilers for the show nor can the show spoil them as they are functionally paper "episodes" of the same series and occur at specific points in the MCU timeline.

6) Meanwhile, discussions of AoS/MCU seem to also often include comparisons to the X-Men franchise (Earth-10005) and Spiderman franchise (Earth-96283) even though those two are their own separate universes due to licensing agreements. Bringing up these comparisons seems to be a natural line of conversation (e.g. how one franchise did it better than another) and not something that people do just to dickishly spoil those other movies, so if that's not going to be allowed then we should probably be clear about that upfront.



So, as you can see, there are potentially even more sticky gray area issues for Agents of SHIELD than for Game of Thrones, hence my hesitation of diving into starting the episode discussion threads before these issues are hashed out. (Then again, it's quite possible that I'm the only person on this site that's a big enough nerd to actually care about these issues with regards to Agents of SHIELD's place in the Marvel Multiverse, so maybe it won't get as combative this time.)

Based on how AoS episode discussions usually go on other websites I frequent, it is VERY common for comics readers to bring in background information from the comics, speculate about whether a character in the show is going to eventually become a superhero character from the comics, speculate about which comics plotlines might be incorporated into the show, etc., as well as general discussion and speculation about where the MCU is going and the plots of future MCU movies (Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, etc.). They don't do this to spoil people, it's just a natural line of discussion, and I've yet to see any show-only fans get upset over this.

Also, I don't think comics readers are enculturated to think of this information as spoilers in the same way that ASOIAF book readers are. So, if some or all of this is going to be considered spoilers under the Fanfare spoiler policy, IMO it would be best to include some sort of warning at the top of Agents of SHIELD episode discussion threads that explicitly lays out which parts of the Marvel Multiverse are open for discussion and which are not. I'm happy to write up some draft text for such a warning, but first I'll need input from the mods and community on how y'all think the Fanfare spoiler policy should be applied to this special snowflake show?

Please advise, thanks!
posted by Jacqueline at 5:51 PM on May 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'm curious how Hannibal discussion without discussion of the books is going to go, since about 50% of talk in the Hannibal threads is debating how they are going to get from where they are now to where the books go -- it's more reimagining than a direct reproduction (a la GoT).
posted by jeather at 5:55 PM on May 6, 2014

Also please can you put tv show names in alphabetical order excluding 'The' or 'A'? Thanks.
posted by jeather at 5:56 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

How do you advise handling the spoiler scope for this?

"Discuss what aired" refers only to the episode being discussed vis a vis future episodes. If watching the show is going to spoil some future thing, that is people's own issue to deal with. FanFare is, right now, for television. If discussing a TV show is going to wreck someones enjoyment of comics and/or the movies, they need to moderate themselves.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:04 PM on May 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

OK, so the spoiler policy is only to prevent future episodes of the show being discussed from being spoiled, not to prevent other things from being spoiled?

And since the comics are more for inspiration than adaptation -- knowing what happened in the comics in another Marvel universe's timeline doesn't tell you what's going to happen in the show's universe's timeline -- then referencing characters, organizations, events, etc. from the comics is OK?
posted by Jacqueline at 6:08 PM on May 6, 2014

Jacqueline, I know you mean well but you are sort of being exhausting. We will deal with most of this stuff when it comes up. People will have to deal with the fact that we can't anticipate every eventuality and, in fact, would prefer not to pre-approve stuff.

The threads are for, more or less, talking about the TV episodes. Getting heavy into the comics, if people feel like it's verging into spoiler territory, would be something that we'd probably prefer people be mindful about. Not like "Don't do it" but like "If people don't know this stuff isn't spoilery for the show, maybe be careful to frame stuff so that it's clear you're aware of spoiler potential and cognizant of other people's feelings."
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:12 PM on May 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

I haven't read the other FanFare threads in any detail, so perhaps this has been mentioned. I think that when it comes to Game of Thrones, we might want to steal a page from the AV club - have one thread for everyone who has read all of the books, and one for folks who are just watching the TV series.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:14 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

What is the refractory period between posts? e.g. mefi is 24 hours, askme is 7 days...
posted by desjardins at 6:17 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think that when it comes to Game of Thrones, we might want to steal a page from the AV club

It has come up; it's not something we're doing at the moment, but when we introduce the ability to create non-episode-specific threads for shows people will be welcome to have series- and season-specific Let's Go Nuts With Book Stuff & Spoilers threads as needed.

What is the refractory period between posts? e.g. mefi is 24 hours, askme is 7 days...

We're sort of wait-and-see on that still, I think. We'd talked about a day between posts as a possible baseline if we see any spree-posting issues arise.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:18 PM on May 6, 2014

OK, then I'll start posting the Agents of SHIELD threads and not worry about including any special snowflake spoiler scope warning. I think that 99% of show watchers realize that the show (and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general) diverges enough from the comics that information from the comics isn't necessarily a spoiler for the show, so hopefully it won't end up being a problem (and as you said we can deal with problems if/when they come up).

Thanks for taking the time to read my laundry list of special snowflake concerns and to confirm that I'm probably over-thinking this. :)
posted by Jacqueline at 6:20 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

When can we post threads for new episodes? Should we adhere to the convention of not posting until they've finished airing on the West Coast (like Matt has been doing with Game of Thrones), or can we put them up earlier, or can we put them up earlier and mods just won't approve them until the episode has finished airing on the West Coast, or...?

If possible, I'd really like to be able to submit posts before the middle of the night my time, even if they are held in the queue for a few hours for the West Coast to catch up.

Please advise, thanks!
posted by Jacqueline at 6:28 PM on May 6, 2014

I'd say post after US west coast airing for shows airing first in US markets, yeah. Submitting a show post early as a one-off thing isn't a big deal or anything so if you're asking about some specific case, that's fine. If you feel you are having serious recurring "I gotta get this post submitted even though it's hours from now" anxiety about it, that is a sign I think mostly to step away from the posting form and try and embrace the fact that someone else can make a post instead without having to consistently be hours early or worried about staying up late. This should be more about "a post gets made by whoever" than any sort of specific user dibs or race to be first, explicit or implicit.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:37 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Can Welcome to Night Vale sneak in under some sort of "not TV but incredibly visually evocative and discussion provoking" exemption?
posted by Flannery Culp at 6:37 PM on May 6, 2014 [14 favorites]

Sooooo, what about shows that don't air in the US at all? I think that, in addition to Eurovision (which is only showing up as a TV movie on IMDB, presumably because it doesn't air in the US at all), there are shows that air elsewhere in the world that draw lots of non-American MeFite eyeballs. (I can't be the only person in Australia impatiently waiting to yell at Nina for making dumb choices and Billie for being a spoiled brat, or Ten wouldn't be bothering to air another season of Offspring.)
posted by gingerest at 6:39 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Jacqueline: I think most people who are watching Agents of SHIELD know its relationship to the MCU. For episodes like the recent ones, I think a note saying something like "this episode contains significant spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier" would suffice.

I wouldn't worry too much about comics spoilers, for that way lies madness and despair.
posted by lovecrafty at 6:41 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Can Welcome to Night Vale sneak in under some sort of "not TV but incredibly visually evocative and discussion provoking" exemption?

You know the answer to this in your heart. But tell Carlos hello for me.

Sooooo, what about shows that don't air in the US at all?

After the last initial airing in the primary market (which may also be the only one if there aren't timezone issues like in the US, I don't know from e.g. European programming practices). So if something's airing on BBC a week or a month or goddam six months before it does in the US, a post could go up after folks in England get done watching it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:43 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

OK, so the spoiler policy is only to prevent future episodes of the show being discussed from being spoiled, not to prevent other things from being spoiled?

No. For best results, discard milk after expiration date.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:45 PM on May 6, 2014

Bug: FanFare has been added to many locations on the site, but not the personal profile for activities (posts and comments)

Nitpick: when filtering favorites by sub-site, the list of sites is not in the same order as listed on the top of the various subsites, which matches the list for RSS feeds at the bottom of pages. I just noticed this now when looking to sort favorites left in FanFare.

I don't mean to be picky a few hours after roll-out, but I figure this thread is to discuss buts and issues of FanFare along with general operational questions and discussions.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:58 PM on May 6, 2014

I made a post about the latest episode of The Good Wife because I'm all caught up, but if like, i wanted to make a post about Justified, I'm about a season and a half behind "real time." It seems awkward to make a post about a random episode from last season but I wouldn't want to read anything about that happened after that. Do we have thoughts on this?
posted by desjardins at 7:05 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes. Catch up. This season was pretty darn good.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:23 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm a bit confused about how spoilers work on an episode-by-episode thread of a show that is not currently airing, or just past seasons. So if we had BSG which hinges hugely on knowing who's a Cylon and who's not, discussing the third episode about Water is very different if you are discussing it as part of the entire show vs discussing it alone as a single episode with no future references.

This is sort of happening with the GOT threads - it's not entirely clear to me if a discussion about what's happening with say Jamie and Cersei in That Scene in the episode can continue with discussion about how Cersei interacts with Jamie in the next episode. So someone who is catching up on episodes and reading a thread per episode will still end up getting future discussions and spoilers.

Is there going to be a firm line that episode discussions of past seasons or finished shows are considered open and not limited to events in and up to that episode only?
posted by viggorlijah at 7:31 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

ORPHAN BLACK ORPHAN BLACK ORPHAN BLACK ORPHAN BLACK
posted by tzikeh at 7:33 PM on May 6, 2014

It's there - go post!
posted by cashman at 7:34 PM on May 6, 2014

it's not entirely clear to me if a discussion about what's happening with say Jamie and Cersei in That Scene in the episode can continue with discussion about how Cersei interacts with Jamie in the next episode.

If I'm understanding you right, no, the discussion in the earlier episode thread should never include stuff about later episodes.

About old shows, I think we're starting off from the same position of, no spoilers from later in the run of the show. At least for shows where spoilers matter -- I mean, Golden Girls, it doesn't matter so much I think. But BSG, I think it would matter and in that case, no tellsies about who's a cylon.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:35 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

cashman: It's there - go post!

DONE!
posted by tzikeh at 7:49 PM on May 6, 2014

So what I hear y'all saying is that I should start watching Orphan Black?
posted by Jacqueline at 7:51 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm curious how Hannibal discussion without discussion of the books is going to go

Me too. Grangousier's comment over on the current Hannibal MeFi post is an interesting take on how Hannibal is playing with the book canon:

What's fascinating about this series is the way it's working almost as the opposite of an adaptation: they're taking all these things we remember very clearly [...] from the other versions and throwing them at us from unexpected angles. Whereas it seems that with Game of Thrones having read the books gives the viewer a pretty good idea of what happens next, with Hannibal being familiar with the material has the opposite effect, since the characters and quotations set up expectations which it seems the series makers work very hard to subvert or flatly contradict.

(The elision is mine to avoid any accidental spoilers here.)

It'll be interesting to see how these discussions work under the more rigid Fanfare policy. Or maybe they won't and the Hannibal fans will prefer to stay under their blue figleaf posts?

As an aside, the Hannibal threads on the Blue also often discuss the "next week on" teasers and promos, of which there are many. Not a fan of that myself but eh, caveat lector, and if I think the discussion is veering too much down that path I simply duck out until the next episode airs. Does the Fanfare "refrain from discussing events that take place in future episodes" policy cover this?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:52 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Jacqueline: So what I hear y'all saying is that I should start watching Orphan Black?

There are only thirteen episodes so far! You can catch up by Saturday if you set your mind to it!

A completely spoiler-free enticement for those who are wondering whether they should binge on Orphan Black.
posted by tzikeh at 7:58 PM on May 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yay! I'm looking forward to the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. threads!
posted by mbrubeck at 8:02 PM on May 6, 2014

That makes me way way less likely to ever comment on the older show threads. I would love to rewatch BSG as an experienced viewer, ditto for Firefly witht he awareness of the overall Miranda-mythology.

These are different ways to experience a show - watching it as it unfolds is one exciting pleasure, while rewatching it is another valid and I think without the event-based excitement of upcoming episodes driving current shows, a much more fruitful discussion for Metafilter.

Could we have a one-year spoiler date? Or a DVD date? If a show has been out for at least a year, or is available on DVD, episodes can include up to but not including current-season events?
posted by viggorlijah at 8:02 PM on May 6, 2014

Although I suppose we could have a "Fresh Watch: BSG" episode threads vs "Rewatch: BSG" threads.
posted by viggorlijah at 8:03 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Jacqueline, we are saying you should watch Orphan Black. We are saying everyone should watch Orphan Black.

I am going to work up a comment about how the show inverts the usual ensemble show in a lot of interesting ways, maybe for this week's episode.
posted by jeather at 8:08 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

If it's an organized watch-through of an old show I'd be comfortable putting it to a vote in the originating discussion whether people want to have spoiler-free threads, bifurcated posting, or a newbie-unfriendly spoilericious discussion - with copious warnings above the fold, of course.

But then, I'm not in charge.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:09 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Although I suppose we could have a "Fresh Watch: BSG" episode threads vs "Rewatch: BSG" threads.

Ooh, this. I'd be in for a rewatch of BSG or Breaking Bad, but from the perspective of having seen the whole series. So various foreshadowing and whatnot can be discussed. DS9 is also good for that kind of discussion.
posted by lovecrafty at 8:10 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Shows I’d love to discuss each and every episode of on FanFare starting from the very first of each:

Arrested Development
Twin Peaks
The Wire

In this kooky age of DVRs, Netflix, beepers and Zenith televisions, Walkmans and Discmans, floppy disks and zip drives, Laserdiscs, answering machines, and Nintendo Power Glove, does it really only make sense to discuss what’s brand new?

Also, discussing John Oliver’s new show could be fun.
posted by context adventure at 8:10 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think for an organized watch-through of an old show, we could take a page out of Mark Watches and ROT13 any discussion that involves future episodes, while still having plenty of "only up to this point" conversation. It's worked extremely well over on Mark's discussion boards.
posted by tzikeh at 8:10 PM on May 6, 2014

Ugh, not ROT-13 please. Instant back button for me. Hover spoiler tags before ROT-13.
posted by lovecrafty at 8:13 PM on May 6, 2014 [8 favorites]

Oh no no no please don't let the books vs show spoilers rule for GoT bleed over into any potential Hannibal fanfare posts, that would be the ruiniest ruining that ever ruined.
posted by elizardbits at 8:20 PM on May 6, 2014 [16 favorites]

You can catch up by Saturday if you set your mind to it!

Dude, I can catch up by TOMORROW. I have l33t TV marathoning skillz.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:38 PM on May 6, 2014

Oh no no no please don't let the books vs show spoilers rule for GoT bleed over into any

Anything else! Any.thing. else. You people fight over GoT like nothing I've ever seen.
posted by sweetkid at 8:41 PM on May 6, 2014 [12 favorites]

bleed over into Hannibal

I see what you did there.
posted by gingerest at 8:44 PM on May 6, 2014

Jacqueline: Dude, I can catch up by TOMORROW. I have l33t TV marathoning skillz.

Well, sure, but Saturday is when the next episode airs, so you don't have to binge if you don't want to (I know you want to) :D

(Yes, I watched four seasons of Friday Night Lights in three days, why do you ask?)
posted by tzikeh at 8:50 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Any word on having color scheme options that aren't the Professional White Background, or is it just a Greasemonkey it away thing?
posted by yasaman at 8:54 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Cool.
posted by homunculus at 9:01 PM on May 6, 2014

When it comes to series that are (not all that faithful) adaptations, like Hannibal or Bates Motel, is talking about the source material is verboten? (Please say it's not!).
posted by rue72 at 9:02 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

When it comes to series that are (not all that faithful) adaptations, like Hannibal or Bates Motel, is talking about the source material is verboten? (Please say it's not!).

Seconded. It seems to work nicely in the current Hannibal thread(s), where referring to book/movie stuff happens quite often. The tv show is so vastly different, it's not really spoiling anything.
posted by lovecrafty at 9:08 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Too bad I'm not watching Person of Interest anymore. That would have been a great show to talk about on here back in the first couple seasons.

The current season would be great too. It's been much more focused on the evolution of The Machine lately.
posted by homunculus at 9:08 PM on May 6, 2014

Hover spoiler tags

I internet mostly on mobile devices, where as far as I can tell there is no way to access information hidden beneath those tags. :(

Also, discussing John Oliver’s new show could be fun.

Yes to the please!
posted by Night_owl at 9:22 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Pony request: Longer text field for tags, please.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:23 PM on May 6, 2014

We'll consider it. Right now it's the same length as tag fields across all sites. You can always add more tags once a post is live.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:24 PM on May 6, 2014

You can always add more tags once a post is live.

oooooooooooooooo i can't promise not to use that power for evil

elizardbits' tumblr is rubbing off on me
posted by Jacqueline at 9:26 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

elizardbits' tumblr rubs off on anyone who encounters it. I have decided that, if I ever have a gravestone, it will simply read:

Name
year of birth - year of death
WHAT IS HAPPEN
WHAT IS HAPPEN
posted by tzikeh at 9:40 PM on May 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'd love to do a rewatch of Gilmore Girls sometime or Fringe.

And now that you suggested it, Jacqueline, I'm having a really hard time not tagging my post with "be my vampire bride" or "hey ladies".
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:14 PM on May 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

yes good
posted by Jacqueline at 10:16 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

If we can have shows that have already aired how about BBC Sherlock?
posted by oneear at 10:39 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I noticed Sherlock on the drop-down list of shows and I would totes be up to discussing it during the long, long, loooooooooooooong hiatus...
posted by Jacqueline at 10:42 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

pb added FanFare activity to your profile pages!
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:50 PM on May 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

I feel like it belongs between AskMe and Music. Maybe I get used to it.
posted by travelwithcats at 11:07 PM on May 6, 2014

How about Vikings? The finale was last Thursday, so the season just ended, but it's still fresh in viewers' minds.
posted by homunculus at 11:43 PM on May 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

And the last episode repeats tomorrow night, in case anyone missed it.
posted by homunculus at 12:15 AM on May 7, 2014

OMG FELIX IS MY NEW FAVORITE PERSON EVER.
posted by Jacqueline at 12:52 AM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

YAY 0/

::waits for the chaos to ensue when Doctor Who airs in the UK before the US . . . ::
posted by Faintdreams at 1:31 AM on May 7, 2014

Pepsi question - what are the rules /conventions anout writing (or starting a show thread) that you personally write also about somewhere else.?

Example, I write (for free) about Lost Girl on a geek website, and recap the show. In the future does this mean I can't start a thread for the shows new season because of (potential) personal bias?
posted by Faintdreams at 2:08 AM on May 7, 2014

Book stuff never bothers me for Hannibal because it never establishes what's going to happen next, just what might happen at some point or might not. The way that show goes, I'm not even 100% willing to commit to Hannibal being a serial killer, so who knows what could happen. They took the books as a challenge to keep people on their toes, not as something to adapt faithfully.

If we can't add things based on writing about them elsewhere, I think pretty much everyone on Tumblr would get excluded.
posted by Sequence at 3:02 AM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Is there where I can complain about the fact that ABC only has five episodes of Agents of Shield on Hulu and Fios On-Demand which makes it so that I can't catch up with the season? We lost a bunch of episodes this winter when we switched DVRs but have no way to watch those now.
posted by octothorpe at 4:01 AM on May 7, 2014

I don't think we need a no-spoilers policy for stuff that's going to be a re-watch for most people, except above the fold.
posted by nangar at 4:19 AM on May 7, 2014

elizardbits' tumblr rubs off on anyone who encounters it.

You make it sound like an ill-behaved dog.

It is so much more.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:32 AM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Just popping in to add my THANK YOU! I'm really enjoying Fanfare.
posted by double bubble at 4:33 AM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

ok, went ahead and removed the title size zero stuff from FanFare. That's the same thing we've always done for Music, IRL, and Jobs. The posts don't make sense there without the title.

Argh, the scourge of the titles continues.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:58 AM on May 7, 2014

I will happily request to add Teen Wolf but that will have to wait until late June when new episodes start.
posted by Kitteh at 5:14 AM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm glad to see that it is continuing and successful. I'm looking forward to its expansion to books and movies, as well as full-season discussions.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:34 AM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yay! Thanks, pb!
posted by zarq at 5:43 AM on May 7, 2014

Just a random thought that maybe doesn't even fit well into this fanfare concept... if you ever did books, it would be cool to have posts hit in advance and then maybe a (7 day?) countdown to comments availability so that people would have warning to read the book, almost like a book club. I would probably read more books if Mefi was constantly prompting me to do so!
posted by selfnoise at 5:55 AM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

(I post this as someone who watches all their TV on Netflix and finds the persistence of appointment television cool but mystifying).
posted by selfnoise at 5:56 AM on May 7, 2014

I don't think Hannibal is in danger of being over-moderated for spoiler content because no one really seems to be complaining about references to the book canon. Same goes for AoS and Bates (I assume). It pretty much only is GoT and could possibly be an issue for classics.
posted by Think_Long at 6:18 AM on May 7, 2014

Walking Dead, too, though they've diverged more from the books.
posted by Etrigan at 6:21 AM on May 7, 2014

"'I don't think we need a no-spoilers policy for stuff that's going to be a re-watch for most people, except above the fold."

For older shows that many people have already watched, it's totally natural in episode threads to be interested in and to discuss the whole of the show and to do so with reference to future events. But in all such discussions there are going to be people who have not seen the show and it's selfish and rude to just demand that they be excluded from the discussion unless they're willing to be spoiled for future events.

However, a compromise just isn't that hard. It's the simple "don't be a dick" rule.

I don't think anyone who's already watched BSG would find it difficult to discuss an episode without mentioning a future revelation that a character is actually a cylon. I also don't think the people who haven't already seen the show will find it that onerous to participate in a discussion where some elements of the show's entire run and allusions to various things are mentioned. An absolute "pretend in this thread as if you've not seen those future episodes" rule would be unnatural and overly restrictive. A "don't spoil the unspoiled for specific and important events" is much less restrictive and much easier to follow.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:37 AM on May 7, 2014

Given the interest in and need to plan collective rewatches as well as issues with butting up against spoiler concerns, etc., are there any plans to create a FanFare MetaTalk page, similar to MusicTalk?
posted by Night_owl at 6:41 AM on May 7, 2014

Wait ... Cylons in BSG? :::cries:::

;)


Game of Thrones, Season 20: Episode 17. Everyone is dead. The direwolves inherit the planet. - SPRING IS COMING


I love the idea of everyone starting rewatch plans but maybe there needs to be a thread to plan it out?
posted by tilde at 6:44 AM on May 7, 2014

Game of Thrones, Season 20: Episode 17. Everyone is dead. The direwolves inherit the planet.

Turns out it was Kobol all along!
posted by selfnoise at 6:48 AM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

> ... if you ever did books, it would be cool to have posts hit in advance and then maybe a (7 day?) countdown to comments availability so that people would have warning to read the book,

I think that's a fantastic idea if it's not too much work for pb and the mod team. It could apply to other media as well. Maybe books, movies and stuff that's been out for while in general? Cued posts could go into an "Upcoming Discussions" sidebar. Maybe the wait time should be longer than a week. I don't think seven days is enough advance warning for a lot of people's schedules.

I'm going to be whining from now on for something like this to get implemented, I think.
posted by nangar at 7:01 AM on May 7, 2014

Example, I write (for free) about Lost Girl on a geek website, and recap the show. In the future does this mean I can't start a thread for the shows new season because of (potential) personal bias?

This to me feels like a "keep yourself honest" sort of deal; I don't think it's a problem to start a thread about something you happen to have written about elsewhere, but (a) it needs to not seem like you're starting threads because of your blog/column/whatever elsewhere and (b) it needs to not seem like a signal boost for that thing and (c) it needs to not be a thing where you set up camp on fanfare as some sort of self-appointed circus master of discussions of the thing.

So, listen to your gut and try to stay on the "I'm posting this because I'm guessing people want to talk about this show" side of the line and it's probably fine. The specifics of how those situations play out is something we'll have to see in practice to develop a more firm policy on if necessary.

Given the interest in and need to plan collective rewatches as well as issues with butting up against spoiler concerns, etc., are there any plans to create a FanFare MetaTalk page, similar to MusicTalk?

Not specifically, no. We don't know how the rewatch scheduling functionality will work exactly yet but hopefully some of that will be self-organizing; beyond that, probably this is just a "use Metatalk to have metadiscussions about Fanfare" thing unless at some point it becomes clear that's not a great fit for the discussions that need to happen.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:34 AM on May 7, 2014

Ivan, I disagree on BSG. Knowing about Cylons makes the episodes come across quite differently - Saul and his wife at the dinner party? Pretty much everything involving the Chief and Boomer? I would love to have both types of discussions, and I think GOT has actually with the spoiler-heavy thread on the main page, shown that metafilter can handle this kind of varying discussion well with a clear above the fold "here be spoilers" or "nothing beyond this episode!" note.
posted by viggorlijah at 8:06 AM on May 7, 2014

Ivan, I think, for older material, the vast majority of people are going to be either rewatching the shows or bingewatching them in season-sized chunks. Even if people want have detailed, episode-by-episode discussions of the shows, most of them aren't going to be unspoiled for future episodes, so I don't think it makes sense to have a 'don't spoil future episodes' policy in this context. I could be wrong about this.
posted by nangar at 8:32 AM on May 7, 2014

Dude, I can catch up by TOMORROW. I have l33t TV marathoning skillz.

Aaaaaaaaand done.

Great show. Anyone who isn't already watching Orphan Black should totally start watching it (from the beginning!).
posted by Jacqueline at 10:13 AM on May 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

...I don't think it makes sense to have a 'don't spoil future episodes' policy in this context. I could be wrong about this.

This seems a bit counter-intuitive. Why not just have a consistent spoiler policy? Would we all vote first to see if "the vast majority" were re-watching/binge-watching? Because otherwise it kind of seems like people would be getting a place to talk about Shows A and C (relatively) unspoiled, but not Shows B and D.
posted by ODiV at 10:23 AM on May 7, 2014

Personally I'm not very interested in episode by episode discussions, but a season-long discussion (eg of Orphan Black season one) would be great and obviously brings in different spoiler issues than a single episode discussion.

With time, hopefully the subsite will grow and include both.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:46 AM on May 7, 2014

Forgive if this has already been addressed/asked, but I'm assuming Fanfare posts will never close?
posted by jbickers at 11:28 AM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

We don't yet have any concrete reason to think they'll need to, but who knows what the ravages of time will reveal.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:29 AM on May 7, 2014

Cool. I like the idea of people being able to come back years from now, when they've finally gotten around to watching something old, and seeing an open discussion by episode.
posted by jbickers at 11:34 AM on May 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

That's what appeals to me about books discussion too. That someone will read a book and find a months- or even years-old thread and post in it.
posted by Kattullus at 11:49 AM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

if like, i wanted to make a post about Justified, I'm about a season and a half behind "real time." It seems awkward to make a post about a random episode from last season but I wouldn't want to read anything about that happened after that. Do we have thoughts on this?

I'll talk about random episodes of Justified! I don't see why the "no future events" rule wouldn't apply. Otherwise, wouldn't it be like going into last week's Orphan Black thread and replying to a comment there with information from the new episode?

Hahahahaha, yes, sorry I am such a terrible MeMail correspondent!

No worries!

"Now I can have other people to disappoint while being obsessed with Soviet assassins and sighing over Keri Russell's shiny beautiful hair."

"You know the answer to this in your heart. But tell Carlos hello for me."

If Keri Rusell and Carlos mated their children would be the Sirens of hair.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:21 PM on May 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

"I think, for older material, the vast majority of people are going to be either rewatching the shows or bingewatching them in season-sized chunks."

Your assumptions about the "vast majority" of people are simply wrong. These days, with Netflix and bitorrents and Amazon and, of course, DVDs, it is very common for people to watch old shows for the first time years after they aired. Episode threads without spoilers for such shows, now and in the future (long after they're dormant, perhaps, but still available in the archives) will be useful for those people. But with spoilers, they will be ruinous (and probably inadvertently) for the people unspoiled who find them.

Following the current spoiler policy for older shows (with some leniency) means that the episode threads will be useful for everyone. Spoiler-included episode threads will be useful only for those who have seen the show (or don't care about being spoiled).

Avoiding important spoilers in such older shows will mean that you can't have precisely the conversation that you want to have, but it will mean that your conversation won't be excluding other people while, nevertheless, you're still able to participate (though with some limitations). And if you really want to talk about stuff in the context of later events, you can talk about it in a general thread and not the episode thread.

I really don't understand why it's so hard for people to understand the principle that their ideal convention will necessarily be someone else's prohibitive bane while, in contrast, a compromise means that almost everyone will have a seat at the table.

It just isn't that difficult in the context of older shows for the spoiled to accept that there's some things they oughtn't mention while, also, for the unspoiled to accept that people will talk about spoilery kinds of things.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:12 PM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

"or bingewatching them in season-sized chunks."

Also, bingewatching doesn't in any way conflict with episode threads and no-spoilers policy. For any shows that I'm catching up on, or when I discover an old show that I never watched when it aired, I almost always bingewatch. Pretty much I only watch serialized shows and have little tolerance for episodic television, so bingewatching works very well for me.

And, for example, when I do this (and this has been true for years and years), when I finish a particularly interesting episode I'll often go to the corresponding Television Without Pity episode thread specifically because I want to see what people had to say about the show at that point. Even when that TWoP episode thread is six years old.

The beauty of episode posts/threads is that they remain useful. Even if you've seen later episodes, it's interesting to read what people had to say about that episode (and implicitly the show up to that point). Episode threads and general posts that contain spoiler information also remain useful, but they're useful only to the people who are spoiled. But everyone can read (or participate in) a spoiler-free episode thread and get a lot of utility from it, whether they're spoiled or not, whether the thread is days or years old.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:25 PM on May 7, 2014

If we can have shows that have already aired how about BBC Sherlock?

Yes please! I'm pretty sure that being able to discuss Sherlock on Fanfare would significantly decrease the time I spend on other life activities, and I am totally okay with that.

Thanks for making this dream that I didn't even know I had into an awesome reality!
posted by litera scripta manet at 1:26 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks again, mods, for starting FanFare. I'm a huge dork when it comes to Game of Thrones/ASOIAF, and the discussions of the show and books on FanFare and the blue over the past few weeks have been real highlights for me.

I know it's been a lot of work, and I really appreciate it.
posted by ocherdraco at 3:58 PM on May 7, 2014 [4 favorites]

We don't yet have any concrete reason to think they'll need to, but who knows what the ravages of time will reveal.

What is the reason threads on other subsites close? I vaguely recall something about potential for spam on older threads but I assume there is more to it, just don't recall the full explanation.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:13 PM on May 7, 2014

You made this announcement fifteen minutes after the first Eurovision semi-final ended. This US bias has gone too far. Too far, I say!

I hope someone does do a post somewhere, anywhere, about Eurovision 2014. There's one on the blue but that's almost a month old and will close in a few hours. Did one last year for the annual event but ... it wasn't very good :( Hoping someone will do a better one this year. #UnsubtleHint
posted by Wordshore at 4:19 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

RIP my ability to leave Metafilter alone for entire hours at a time every once in a while....
posted by sparkletone at 5:20 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

What is the reason threads on other subsites close?

All Threads Must Die
posted by elizardbits at 5:20 PM on May 7, 2014 [6 favorites]

What is the reason threads on other subsites close?

Spam is a big part of it. I'm happy we have the "final update" thing for AskMe now, but in general having a bunch of barely-moderated spaces for people to grabass around isn't really in line with what we're trying to help facilitate here. We have a "straggling comments" feature where we can see what sort of comments get posted in super-old threads and they're really mostly spam or OP updates in AskMe.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:29 PM on May 7, 2014

Could we trial a Season-with-spoilers discussion thread on an older show that has current episode threads and an already aired show as a test? We already have an Orphan Black and GOT threads, so I would suggest:

-Season 1 thread with full spoilers
-Episode threads from 1x01 rewatch with no spoilers outside the episodes up to then

I think Teen Wolf and BSG (starting from the miniseries) would be good tests for both of these. And I would happily rewatch them.
posted by viggorlijah at 5:56 PM on May 7, 2014

Can we get per-series RSS feeds?
posted by nicwolff at 6:23 PM on May 7, 2014

Can we get per-series RSS feeds?

It's on pb's "to do" list.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:25 PM on May 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Hey, can someone link me to the guidelines/instructions for submission? A show I like has a finale this weekend and I want to look into submitting a thread but I've kind of glossed over the details for that process and the meta threads are huge and confusing.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:41 PM on May 7, 2014

Drinky Die: From the Fanfare subsite page, click "New Post" like you would for any other subsite and from there the form is pretty self-explanatory.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:48 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just go here. No above-the-fold spoilers in your description. Matt approves all queued posts.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:49 PM on May 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Hey, for those of you interested in discussing Sherlock, should I make posts for each of the episodes or just one post for S03E03 as a proxy for discussing the whole series-to-date? Is anyone interested in discussing Sherlock in the near future going to be starting from the beginning of the series or are we all pretty much caught up or ...?
posted by Jacqueline at 6:51 PM on May 7, 2014

Jacqueline, I'm not all caught up (only seen S03E01), but I'm willing to fast-track my watching if you're about to start a discussion!
posted by pianissimo at 6:56 PM on May 7, 2014

You should fast-track your watching regardless because S03E03 is amazeballs. There are certain sequences in that episode that I have rewatched dozens of times because they were so mindbogglingly well-done.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:57 PM on May 7, 2014

I added series RSS feeds. There's an RSS icon at the top of the show page that you can click to get the feed URL. It's also discoverable via the show page if your browser or feed reader does that sort of thing automatically.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:55 PM on May 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Check!
posted by Roger Dodger at 7:56 PM on May 7, 2014

Shot in the dark, but would anyone be interested in discussing The Chris Gethard Show?
posted by Hume at 8:05 PM on May 7, 2014

You should fast-track your watching regardless because S03E03 is amazeballs.

Noted and actioning. Just bear in mind that I do not have your mad bingewatching skillz.
posted by pianissimo at 8:17 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I propose that MetaTalk should be above FanFare on the mobile site menu.

Seconded.
posted by purpleclover at 8:22 PM on May 7, 2014

ok, moved FanFare below MetaTalk on the mobile menu.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:25 PM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

I ... I am unaccustomed to these reasonable and timely responses to requests.

Thanks!
posted by purpleclover at 8:34 PM on May 7, 2014

pb managed to groom and shoe this pony before I could even verbalise it.
posted by arcticseal at 8:54 PM on May 7, 2014 [4 favorites]

(I mean that in other arenas of my life, it's unheard of to just ask for something and get it. Did not mean to imply that the delightful MeFi staff is unresponsive. I mean: cheers, all.)
posted by purpleclover at 8:55 PM on May 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Dude, I can catch up by TOMORROW. I have l33t TV marathoning skillz.
Aaaaaaaaand done.
14 hours and 30 minutes watched in 14 hours and 22 minutes. l33t indeed.
posted by unliteral at 9:02 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

thanks pb!

Can we add Silicon Valley?
posted by azarbayejani at 9:06 PM on May 7, 2014

14 hours and 30 minutes watched in 14 hours and 22 minutes. l33t indeed.

Each episode is only 44 minutes without ads, and 13 * 44 = 9 hours and 33 minutes.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:10 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Has anyone mentioned that this past Monday Gawker announced its new TV discussion site, Morning After? If not, someone should mention it; they're using the "staff writers start the threads" model:

I'm extremely pleased to announce the launch of Morning After, Gawker's new television-discussion sub-blog, helmed by Jacob Clifton of Television Without Pity...We want to become the home for that—for the best of what's being said about television, not just by professional critics but by the obsessed and brilliant viewers and fans, who've shown over the last several years that they can provide just as much intelligence and insight as their credentialed peers. We're working on creating a publishing and commenting platform that will encourage and foster the best conversations online. And in Jacob and the band of writers he's put together, we know we have some of the strongest and sharpest voices in television writing ready to stimulate and prompt discussion.

Jacob Clifton continues with a kind of personal manifesto:

When Television Without Pity died, about a month ago, I was in the shower. My entire life changed very quickly and it was a little vertiginous. So I stayed in there for about an hour, and then went straight to my computer and wrote to Gawker, explaining my desire to create a new place to talk about television that didn't rely on easy tropes or lazy snark or Daria Morgendorffer '90s sniping to get its point across....We got into talks within a couple of hours.

Now, a month later, we're debuting Morning After, a TV-centric destination vertical that, thanks to the platform and possibilities given to us by Kinja, will let us do the kind of writing and create the kind of smart, passionate, literate discussions that these new viewers I'm speaking of—us; you and me—are the most hungry for.

We're going to be experimenting with a lot of different ideas over the next few weeks and months, and I don't expect everything to work immediately. But when you arrive at the Morning After, today and every day from now on, I can promise you three things: You will get great writing. Ekphrasis is the terminal goal of all critical writing, and it's better to have that up over the door than sneak it in through the back way.

You will get your say, because nothing kills a conversation faster than some fake idea that any writer, about something as subjective as art, is an expert of record or has a better or more valid opinion than the people she's writing for. That's critics, and they have their own club; that is not what we are interested in doing.

And finally, you'll be getting the strongest, smartest community of commenters and fellow fans on the planet. The shameless, the guiltless, the passionate and the fierce. Which is all I've ever wanted, and why I'm here today.
posted by mediareport at 9:18 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

And finally, you'll be getting the strongest, smartest community of commenters and fellow fans on the planet.

lol no

Gawker droolz, MetaFilter rulez!
posted by Jacqueline at 9:20 PM on May 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm still stuck on "a TV-centric destination vertical," myself.
posted by mediareport at 9:23 PM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

The main thing I miss from TWOP wasn't the discussions (which I almost never read) but the episode recaps. Is there any way to integrate that into Fanfare, if people are willing to take on writing them? Other than just posting them as a long-ass comment halfway down the episode discussion thread?
posted by Jacqueline at 9:24 PM on May 7, 2014

That was discussed at length in the original MefiTV thread, Jacqueline, with many folks saying they were more interested in Metafilter-style discussion than unpaid show recaps written by various members. You might want to try the Gawker site or Previously.TV, which was started by some other Television Without Pity folks, if paid recaps are more important to you than discussions.
posted by mediareport at 9:34 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

There's no plans for formal recaps, you can either post it as a comment or link to whatever recap you've written elsewhere.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:35 PM on May 7, 2014

if paid recaps are more important to you than discussions.

No, I prefer discussing things with MeFites since I already sort of "know" you guys. I just thought that TWOP's recaps were funny and I'd enjoy seeing MeFites bring the snark in a similar fashion.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:37 PM on May 7, 2014

Jacqueline, I get my recap fix from a bunch of places largely by googling the episode title and recap. Weirdly, the Wall Street Journal produces some very good recaps. I love not having recaps on FanFare because then the discussion that unfolds is about the show, not critiquing the recap.

It would be great to have links to external recaps edited onto the post though.
posted by viggorlijah at 9:38 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

The notion of an entire Gawker site built of Jacob Cliftonites - wow. So many words.
posted by gingerest at 9:40 PM on May 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've thought about writing episode recaps for Agents of SHIELD, if for no other reason than it would be further grist for my torrid imaginary love affair with Agent Coulson. Not sure where I'd post them, though -- I suppose that I could finally put my Tumblr account to use for something other than stalking elizardbits.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:41 PM on May 7, 2014

I'd enjoy seeing MeFites bring the snark in a similar fashion.

Well, again, those extended recaps you enjoyed were being paid for. I don't think you can expect a whole lot of writers to consistently produce similarly dense recaps here for multiple shows, for free. And as viggorlijah notes, you can find lots of recaps anywhere, now including at least two sites organized by former TWoPers.
posted by mediareport at 9:43 PM on May 7, 2014

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of each person who wanted to help write recaps would just take on one show or maybe a couple of people for each show. But it doesn't sound like there's interest to do that here so I shall have to content myself with bite-sized chunks of MeFite-written snark instead.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:48 PM on May 7, 2014

Oh, I think plenty of people will be interested in doing recaps of their fave shows, for a while, anyway, and they can do that in the current arrangement just fine, for as long as they feel like keeping it up. I think what Matt correctly understood is that starting the discussions shouldn't have to wait for someone to post an extended recap first.

In other words, you'll have plenty of larger-than-bite-sized chunks of MeFite genius to chew on. They just won't all come at the start of the meal.
posted by mediareport at 9:53 PM on May 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Without reading the whole thread, and which I hope I don't regret, I think this fanfare thing is terrific. Thanks.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:12 AM on May 8, 2014

I was thinking about the recap thing last night. You know how on each MeFi podcast, there's a link to a crowdsourced transcript? What about putting one of these in each episode thread, and people can contribute to them as they have time? (Even if this doesn't become an official thing, people could do this on their own when they create a new thread.)
posted by jbickers at 5:23 AM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm surprised that anyone wants to write recaps who isn't being paid to do it.
posted by smackfu at 6:35 AM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

For me, the most fascinating part of both the previous discussion and this one is seeing the very different ways people consume and discuss media (and how we are all oh-so passionate that our way is the right way).

I'd never in a million years look at recaps, or pause a season's binge session to look at years-old episode discussions, for example, but in fact that is what many people do, to the point that it is guiding the subsite structure and guidelines. Ditto many people's primary focus on plot (and consequent concern with spoilers)

So even though FanFare has been taken in a direction that doesn't do much for me personally, I've found the Meta discussions incredibly rich and informative, some of the best I have ever read here.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:05 AM on May 8, 2014

Yeah as stuff grows we could have like a special link area for recaps. If people want to build them on the wiki and then link to them in-thread we're fine with that. We'll have to see what place recaps (or desire for recaps) has as the site builds out.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:23 AM on May 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

So in those particular cases, creating a FFFFP with self links would be ok? Or would it be more of a "here is the discussion post about this episode" as the actual post itself and then comment #1 as "also here is a link to a recap i did elsewhere" kind of thing?
posted by elizardbits at 7:28 AM on May 8, 2014

We mentioned this a little upthread but we're hoping for a "Keep yourself honest" guideline for now. So linking to a recap in the thread should be AOK since FanFare posts are often linkless anyhow, but I don't think we have any strong feelings about how it will go, but definitely self-links aren't the same verboten that they are on MeFi.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:36 AM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you have an extensive recap you've posted on your own blog or elsewhere, and no one's already started a thread about the episode you've recapped, then just repost your recap as your front-page post at FanFare. No self-linking necessary, but posting your own content as the main link on FanFare's front page should be allowed.
posted by mediareport at 8:58 AM on May 8, 2014

I mean "main content" instead of "main link." Just post the first few lines of your recap as the post and use the "more inside" to post the rest. That wouldn't be a problem, would it?
posted by mediareport at 9:00 AM on May 8, 2014

Not disagreeing mainly but we have, in the past, had people who would do this regularly with MeFi posts (copypaste content from their own blog in order to get more eyeballs) and it was ... suboptimal. So we'd prefer that recappers weren't doing that. We'd like MeFi content to be MeFi content. If people want to post links to their recaps on the inside, as long as it doesn't regularly become a thing with them, that's fine.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:00 AM on May 8, 2014

Well, this seems like a good exception that preserves the "no self-linking" rule. FanFare recaps should be allowed as front-page content even if they've appeared elsewhere, so long as no one else has already created a thread about that episode already.

I think that situation will be a rare occurrence, but it should be allowed.
posted by mediareport at 9:02 AM on May 8, 2014

We're going to evaluate it as it comes up but I'd lean more towards "add a link to your content later rather than dumping a copypasted recap" since FanFare posts aren't really intended as recaps anyhow, but I'm okay seeing what the community comes up with.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:06 AM on May 8, 2014

Well, this seems like a good exception that preserves the "no self-linking" rule.

It somewhat defeats the purpose of preserving the no self-linking rule if it's being done only in letter and not in spirit. You are essentially proposing that people use the front page of Fanfare as a proxy or replacement for their own blog, which is not really anything like what we had in mind when we made the decision to start rolling this out.

Linking to a recap you wrote of a thing there's a fanfar thread about it totally fine. Doing it in a fanfare thread that you were the poster of is generally speaking fine, though it needs to not end up looking like a regular "I'm posting this as an excuse to link to my writing" thing. Recap-as-post seems like it's heading into significantly more problematic territory.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:14 AM on May 8, 2014

Slightly more problematic, maybe. But yeah, the idea of using the sidebar, or the idea of crowd-sourcing a recap that's then linked in the sidebar, works, too.
posted by mediareport at 9:19 AM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Would sidebar links to recaps have to be authored by you? It might be a useful resource to link to any favorite ones you find online. I know I'm always surprised by some weird news outlet or tiny blog doing really deep good write-ups of certain shows and I always forget to revisit them each week. Might be cool if there were say half a dozen links on the side of a Mad Men thread to various recaps on the web about that same episode.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:30 AM on May 8, 2014 [8 favorites]

I like the idea of being able to link to any recap, not just the ones written by MeFites. Also albums of screencaps can be useful too for shows where there's a lot of Easter Eggs buried for people with the time and interest to frame-by-frame certain scenes.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:33 AM on May 8, 2014

Might be cool if there were say half a dozen links on the side of a Mad Men thread to various recaps on the web about that same episode.

yes I would eat this right up
posted by sweetkid at 9:33 AM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I like the idea of both MeFite-authored and non-MeFite recaps (or other deep episode-based analysis) being sidebarred, but I think it would be cool to somehow highlight the content from fellow MeFites.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:33 AM on May 8, 2014

Maybe there could be something in the posting process that asks "Would you like to link to any interesting recaps you've found on the web about this episode? If you've written one yourself, it's ok to include that" or something.
posted by mediareport at 9:35 AM on May 8, 2014

Albums of screencaps seems like a bit of overkill, I've often just linked to a single screencap image if I'm making a point in a FanFare thread about a scene.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:35 AM on May 8, 2014

I think it would be cool to somehow highlight the content from fellow MeFites.

Yeah, it could just be a checkbox on submission, like "I wrote this screencap" and shows it at the top of the list of all the offsite recaps. But, we might have to see how it plays out, if it comes off as too self-promotional or becomes an avenue where people are writing up every show they can to be on the list at the top, I dunno.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:38 AM on May 8, 2014

Might be cool if there were say half a dozen links on the side of a Mad Men thread to various recaps on the web about that same episode.

This is one of the things that is interesting about SNL recaps. Like everyone has different opinions about how the show went, what was good and what wasn't good and so talking about people talking about the show is also an interesting part of talking about the show.

Love the idea of a little MF icon next to MeFite recaps.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:42 AM on May 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm surprised that anyone wants to write recaps who isn't being paid to do it.

That's about 30-35% of the fuel that powers the internet.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:35 AM on May 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

People moderate forums on a volunteer basis! You couldn't pay me to do that and people sign up to do it for free.

I think the security at PAX is volunteer too, isn't it?
posted by ODiV at 10:36 AM on May 8, 2014

Would FanFare be the place to post about one-time episodes, annual events, or something that doesn't have a season or series? Such as the (United States) State of the Union, Academy Awards, or (tonight's) NFL Draft? Or would those still go to the blue?
posted by I am the Walrus at 1:08 PM on May 8, 2014

I would say that's still destined for the blue, especially since it's basically live blogging events and not what we're going for on FanFare either.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:13 PM on May 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Matt and pb, thanks! Also, you've probably ruined my productivity forever but that's OK.
posted by mmoncur at 6:31 PM on May 8, 2014

The notion of an entire Gawker site built of Jacob Cliftonites - wow. So many words.

Well, could you use some of those words to help me understand what you mean? It's been ages since I visited TWoP, and I never got involved enough to care about the apparently atrocious social politics of the moderation there, but as I nose around for fun, useful and interesting current TV discussion sites, I'd love to hear some reasoned criticism of new Gawker editor Jacob Clifton's approach - and that of his "ites" - from someone who has firsthand experience.
posted by mediareport at 6:39 PM on May 8, 2014

Just submitted for approval two current season anime series that I'd love to make threads about: the new season of Mushi-Shi and Ping Pong: The Animation. The shows are easy to get into, don't rely on references to other anime, avoid creepy otaku-bullshit, and are legally simulcasted. There's a delay unfortunately but both are available on Hulu.

Mushi-Shi is ghost stories about a specialist who travels around medieval Japan solving the problems of people who got mixed up in these bizarre nature spirits. While there are some truly frightening moments, it's less about horror and more about making peace with a chaotic world. There's some really emotionally moving stuff here too. The original series is a classic, and the new season is somehow even better.

Ping Pong dives into the minds of high school table tennis players, exploring themes of talent and the drive to improve. The source manga has an amazing sense of style, and the series is directed by Yuasa Masaaki who's a fucking genius. The series has attracted the best animators in Japan and explores a style that's impressionistic but with a real weight and emotion to it. I mean, check the fucking opening, oh my god.

Note, you might have heard of Yuasa from Kick-Heart, a short that was funded through Kickstarter. Before that he made a show called The Tatami Galaxy that is also basically the best.

Most anime wouldn't make good FanFare posts, but these are two of the best shows airing on television anywhere in the world right now and it'd be cool to feature them!
posted by The Devil Tesla at 6:52 PM on May 8, 2014

Well, could you use some of those words to help me understand what you mean? It's been ages since I visited TWoP, and I never got involved enough to care about the apparently atrocious social politics of the moderation there, but as I nose around for fun, useful and interesting current TV discussion sites, I'd love to hear some reasoned criticism of new Gawker editor Jacob Clifton's approach - and that of his "ites" - from someone who has firsthand experience.

His recaps literally have So. Many. Words. They are sort of famously very very long and tend to spend a lot of time on analysis of the show that falls outside of the purview of a strict recap. He also tends to spot a theme in a show and then work it for the rest of the show's run, which some people are not into, or are into but think he's wrong about the theme. And they're really, really, really long. Like getting paid by the word long. Unabridged Victor Hugo long. Just, super long.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 7:04 PM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Snarl is not exaggerating. He wrote a 10,000+-word long recap of a Gossip Girl episode (GG was an hour-format teen soap that aired on CW.) If he chooses staff who write like him, and he edits the way he writes, the recaps will be epic - enormous and dense like pumpernickel - and the whole internet might just collapse into the bandwidth black hole of the new website.
posted by gingerest at 8:09 PM on May 8, 2014

We just updated the Show Pages, listing all the discussions for a particular show. Check out the sexy-ass Mad Men page for a good demo of it.

Click on any of the show titles on the current Archives page, as I've gone out and found big images of each show. It was kind of amazing to find studio photos of the entire cast standing in a line crossing their arms for almost every single show on the list.

The pages are designed to look great in modern browsers. It even looks good on an iPhone.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:01 PM on May 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

Check out the sexy-ass Mad Men page for a good demo of it.

That is indeed sexy ass. Wow!
posted by sweetkid at 9:03 PM on May 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Images? On Metafilter?

I'm getting strange but not unpleasant feelings in my downbelows.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:36 PM on May 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

PS that Mad Men page looks way better even with my half-assed 5-minute Stylish colorization css than it does in Brutalist White.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:19 AM on May 9, 2014

Excited about this.

Btw I'm about to start watching this Australian comedy show on Hulu. Fair game? It's a network show, not webisodes. Or is this US/UK only?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:33 AM on May 9, 2014

mathowie: Click on any of the show titles on the current Archives page, as I've gone out and found big images of each show. It was kind of amazing to find studio photos of the entire cast standing in a line crossing their arms for almost every single show on the list.

I'm amused at how Orphan Black both fits that description and doesn't.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:54 AM on May 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Also someone above called it "Game of Spoilers". Lol.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:02 AM on May 9, 2014

It's not US/UK only, Potomac Avenue, though our interface with the IMDB api may cause difficulties in some cases. Why not give it a shot? As a general note, Matt is vetting the submissions and anyone can contact us to get more info if something doesn't go through.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:16 AM on May 9, 2014

Oh my god I love those images so much I'm actually mad that they aren't on episode pages.
posted by Etrigan at 4:52 AM on May 9, 2014

Yeah, a tv discussion site without images allowed? Not really your best option. Interesting to see how much further it goes.
posted by mediareport at 6:04 AM on May 9, 2014

So, if I like a show, but the show threads start with a midseason episode, could one:

1) Start threads for prior season episodes?
2) Mark an episode thread somehow as covering more than one episode?
3) Something else??
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:23 AM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Now that FanFare has opened up more broadly, should the MetaFilter sidebar be updated to reflect that? The first MeTa post is linked there, but not this one.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:02 AM on May 9, 2014

We just updated the Show Pages, listing all the discussions for a particular show. Check out the sexy-ass Mad Men page for a good demo of it.

Can users submit banner images for consideration, or will all those sexy-ass banners be made in-house?
posted by filthy light thief at 8:06 AM on May 9, 2014

1) Start threads for prior season episodes?

Totally fine, yeah.

2) Mark an episode thread somehow as covering more than one episode?

We don't have non-episode-specific threads available as an option yet, but we intend to get there soonish. At that time, you can have it be whatever you want. For now, I think a "this is the most recently aired episode and the first one to go up on the site" episode thread is likely to end up being a little bit of a defacto catchup though hopefully folks would mostly do so in the spirit of contextualizing the episode itself rather than going super nuts with the entire backstory.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:06 AM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Now that FanFare has opened up more broadly, should the MetaFilter sidebar be updated to reflect that? The first MeTa post is linked there, but not this one.

Yeah, we should do that, thanks for the reminder.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:07 AM on May 9, 2014

Thanks cortex, I just noticed the sidebar.

Regarding the banners, it looks like there are ones for all the shows except Seed and Supernatural.

Perhaps I've missed it in this thread or the prior one, but should there be any sort of pre-planning or MeTa "notice" for discussing old shows? Or am I overthinking this, and should I post Murder, She Wrote S1 E1 "The Murder of Sherlock Holmes" and see how it goes? It's that, or Firefly, though my wife re-watched Firefly recently and may not be too keen on re-rewatching it now.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:16 AM on May 9, 2014

Any potential copyright issues with those images or am I being overly concerned?
posted by ODiV at 8:19 AM on May 9, 2014

Regarding the banners...

Thanks, yeah, a human being has to add and adjust those banners. So we won't always have an image right after a new show is added. We'll try to get them added quickly.

Any potential copyright issues with those images or am I being overly concerned?

The studios release those images for promoting their shows and we're doing that here. If they aren't happy with us using them we'll take them down or swap them out.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:22 AM on May 9, 2014

Mathowie talked about using general discussion threads to organize rewatches of old shows.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:28 AM on May 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

So just to be clear if I wanted to talk about, say True Detective, I could right now post True Detective S1 Ep 8 and discuss both that episode, previous episodes, and speculate lightly on future seasons and what they might bring correct?

And the same would hold if I wanted to discuss, say MASH?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:21 AM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

If so, that seems very common sense and a good way to have both episode-specific and general show discussion.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:22 AM on May 9, 2014

My only concern would be, does it create a "double post" situation if someone down the road decides to do an episode-by-episode rewatch of the show? Since you have already posted the finale, will they still be able to make a post about it even though FanFare has already "done" that episode?

Probably rare enough to be a problem we don't need to worry about until we cross that bridge, but maybe something to consider.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:49 AM on May 9, 2014

no, my guess would be that if Potomac Avenue posts a thread about the True Detective finale, someone/everyone else can post individual threads about episodes 1-7.
posted by sweetkid at 9:57 AM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Right! Not that I'm saying I want to be all "FIRSTIES" but this systems allows for rewatches and meta-discussion of a recent season not having to wait for every single other episode post to happen first.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:59 AM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sorry, meta-discussion of a recent season OR an older show that finished.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:02 AM on May 9, 2014

We should organize a rewatch of True Detective. I only got up to episode three before I got tired of downloading it and a few months later I finally got HBO so I can watch them on demand with HBO GO, so they'd be mostly new to me. Maybe I'll go through it in the next week or two, and if I do I'll do a MetaTalk post announcing it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:25 AM on May 9, 2014

My only concern would be, does it create a "double post" situation if someone down the road decides to do an episode-by-episode rewatch of the show? Since you have already posted the finale, will they still be able to make a post about it even though FanFare has already "done" that episode?

It's an interesting wrinkle that we've thought about but not made any specific move to work around. I think we'll see what happens in practice and see in the long run if it makes sense to try and accommodate some sort of work-around or just leave it at "it's okay that different people started talking about this episode previously, let's talk about it some more at the tail end of that thread".

Really, that's the general case anyway; without an organized rewatch, people can still wander into any thread when they happen to have finally gotten around to watching S0*E0* of a show and add their thoughts. With an organized rewatch it's just going to involve a crowd more consistently.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:36 AM on May 9, 2014

Frankly it'd make some thematic sense for the finale of True Detective to be the first episode posted. Flat circle and all.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:43 AM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

What duplication checks, if any, will there be? I just checked this with Elementary S2 E22, and there was no warning that the particular episode was already posted at all, or within the last month, should re-posts be OK for FanFare group rewatching type scenarios.

Also, am I correct in reading that MetaTalk should be the place to propose FanFare group rewatching?
posted by filthy light thief at 10:47 AM on May 9, 2014

What duplication checks, if any, will there be?

Oh ho! Looks like at the moment not any; I just did a test post for Mad Men S07E4 and it does indeed go through without warning and list both on the Archives page just fine.

Which, I think the duplication itself is fine if it's intentional for e.g. the rewatch scenario we're discussing, but we should definitely be at least providing a sanity check "are you doing this on purpose or are you cruisin' for an accidental double?" thing with matching show/season/episode input like that.

Also, am I correct in reading that MetaTalk should be the place to propose FanFare group rewatching?

At the moment, yeah. In the long run we'll see if it makes more sense to wrap that formally into the Fanfare workflow instead.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:57 AM on May 9, 2014

Something's up with your refractory period timer because I got the message "You cannot post to the front page at this time because you have already posted in the past 24 hours." but my last post was 3 days ago.
posted by desjardins at 11:14 AM on May 9, 2014

We didn't say which 24 hours.

We'll take a look.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:18 AM on May 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Try posting again, desjardins.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:22 AM on May 9, 2014

Is a MyFanFare page in the works?
posted by Night_owl at 11:26 AM on May 9, 2014

Not right now, but I think that's a good idea down the road a ways.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:27 AM on May 9, 2014

cortex: providing a sanity check "are you doing this on purpose or are you cruisin' for an accidental double?"

Please tell me you plan on using that wording when the warning is actually implemented.
posted by JiBB at 11:48 AM on May 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Proposed rewording:

Roll for sanity check: "Are you doing this on purpose or are you cruisin' for an accidental double?"
posted by filthy light thief at 12:15 PM on May 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

filthy light thief: What duplication checks, if any, will there be?

cortex: I think the duplication itself is fine if it's intentional for e.g. the rewatch scenario we're discussing, but we should definitely be at least providing a sanity check

OK, thanks! I'm no coder, but given that episode posing is initiated via drop-downs, it seems like an easier task to check episode, season and episodes vs past posts, no need to look at episode titles as they could vary slightly (& vs And, St. vs Street, etc.), if not drastically (I'm thinking about translations of non-English programs).

I realize FanFare is pretty darned new, but given the option to re-watch, I had a few more questions. Should titles be strictly limited to the actual title, vs appending information like (syndication) or (re-watch) for programs that are re-aired or rewatched as a group? I ask because I'm wondering if FanFare posts could also get sorted by episode order, or just date of original posting.

Last question: it there a close date for FanFare threads? Are they 30 or 31 days, or longer?
posted by filthy light thief at 12:21 PM on May 9, 2014

pb, cortex - still not working. Same error message. Chrome on Win 7, if that helps for some reason. Should I turn it off and back on again?
posted by desjardins at 12:41 PM on May 9, 2014

Should titles be strictly limited to the actual title, vs appending information like (syndication) or (re-watch) for programs that are re-aired or rewatched as a group?

I think sticking to just title make sense as the default when there's not a specific need to disambiguate. I don't see any reason to note syndication specifically, in any case, but maybe you can explain if you have a specific tricky scenario in mind.

But it's a good question to think about long term in terms of identifying an organized rewatch of especially a show likely to have non-rewatch-related episode threads. It seems like the likely cases where there'd be an issue are:

1. Someone starts posting about an older show now, and then a year down the line a rewatch gets organized and there's already some extent threads for some episodes of the show. Would it be better to leave the titles of the non-duplicate episodes as just [title] vs. [title (rewatch)] for the episode-duplicate new threads, or to label all of those rewatch-group-motivated threads [title (rewatch)]?

2. A currently airing show gets revisited for rewatching at some point in the future (maybe a rewatch-from-S01E01 of something currently a few seasons in), and so the rewatch group hits a point where the original fully-saturated per-episode posts had already been made. New threads with (rewatch) for each episode with a new thread?

But both of those cases are working on the assumption that there'd need to be a new thread for the rewatch episode, instead of just picking up some new discussion in the existing episode thread. I'm not sure how that will work out in practice; I think we may have to see a couple practical examples and go from there. The idea of conversation just picking up again in the original thread is actually pretty Metafilter-normal behavior.

Personally, I'm inclined to think that might work well for the large majority of these nominal duplicate episode-thread situations and the place where an extra thread would be necessary are the exception. But that's sorta spitballing.

Last question: it there a close date for FanFare threads? Are they 30 or 31 days, or longer?

They're open indefinitely at this point.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:44 PM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Great, so people can complain about GoT spoilers until the heat death of the universe.
posted by desjardins at 12:53 PM on May 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

I don't want to spoil anything, but I've been privy to GRRM's drafts, and so far The Heat Death of the Universe is his worst work to date. People will quite rightly stop complaining about GoT spoilers when Heat Death comes out, because GRRM shouldn't mix fantasy and sci-fi. Seriously, "space knights?" Sorry, I'll stop talking about it.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:00 PM on May 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Actually it feels to me like the GoT posts are running a lot more smoothly now. The next bumpy ride will be the first Hannibal post.

wrt Fanfare navigation: could the posts get "previous episode" / "next episode" links instead of / in addition to the normal MeFi "older" / "newer" links?

Although I guess that might get a bit fidgety for shows which (a) have only one episode posted so far, or (b) have only spotty coverage, ie not every episode got a post made for it...
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 1:06 PM on May 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I ask because I'm wondering if FanFare posts could also get sorted by episode order, or just date of original posting.

You should definitely be able to sort by episode order.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:19 PM on May 9, 2014

Tagging onto the question of linking posts, it might be beneficial to avoid surprises by changing what is included in the older/newer or previous/next episode links. For instance, From the Seed S2E9 post, the current display is:

« Older Cas asks Sam and Dean for help... | An episode with some twists as... Newer »

With other sites that's fine, as jumping blind into a post wouldn't result in people crying out "spoilers!," but for people looking to discuss episodes, those links could be improved with basic show info, for instance:

« Previous Supernatural: King Of The Damned (S9 E21) | Elementary: Art in the Blood (S2 E23) Next »

Or don't touch Older/Newer for some more consistency, even if we change to list show, episode title, season and episode numbers.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:30 PM on May 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

still not working. Same error message.

Sorry about that. I think I finally have it fixed. Thanks for bearing with us while we work out these bugs.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:16 PM on May 9, 2014

Pony request: Is there any way to make the previously / next links go to other episodes in the same series instead of just to whatever posts for whatever series happened to be posted around the same time?
posted by Jacqueline at 5:29 PM on May 9, 2014

It seems to me that organized rewatches by their very nature should be, um, organized and formalized and the corresponding episode threads set apart in some way.

As I wrote in the earlier thread, my guess is that the participation in episode threads of older shows will be very, very sparse and end up being mostly clutter (which is why I suggested they not exist outside of organized, official rewatches), but that organized rewatches have a lot of potential for bringing people to watching and discussing an old show.

But that will only work if the rewatches are high-profile enough, which, in turn, sort of implies that only the highest-interest candidates are chosen for organized rewatches.

If those conditions are met, though, I think that rewatches could be one of the most fun and successful aspects of FanFare. In that context, it makes sense that rewatch posts be identified as such and easily found (indeed, that they be high-profile somewhere such that people learn of the rewatches through their being featured somewhere in FanFare).

A good candidate for that would be a sidebar section on the main FanFare listing "current rewatches", as well as a listing in the show page that would mention the existence of a current rewatch.

Also, yeah, I think that a sidebar for each episode thread for recaps, including little badges for mefi-produces recaps, is the perfect way to handle recaps.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:51 AM on May 10, 2014

Any plan for some kind of "My Shows" functionality? Sort of pre-favoriting any post in a list of subscribed-to shows?
posted by mzurer at 9:39 AM on May 10, 2014

Any plan for some kind of "My Shows" functionality? Sort of pre-favoriting any post in a list of subscribed-to shows?

It's a tricky one because the last thing we want is people getting accidentally spoilered on their favorite show because they're a couple days behind and the system decided to Be Helpful. So the basic idea is good, the question of how to manage it needs to be talked out.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:00 AM on May 10, 2014

I was thinking more like a page like the existing Fanfare home with the episode précis, but only with shows I'm subscribed to, so spoilers wouldn't be an issue.
posted by mzurer at 10:26 AM on May 10, 2014

Well, much of an issue, anyway.
posted by mzurer at 10:26 AM on May 10, 2014

Ah, I see what you mean then, yeah. I think we'll definitely pursue something in that mold, whether in the form of that notional page or some other format.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:07 PM on May 10, 2014

Yeah, I would definitely like to be able to narrow down the display to shows that I am watching/ interested in, as mzurer describes.
posted by furiousthought at 12:55 PM on May 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I know it's already been deemed "square peg, round hole," but I must put my vote in for someday finding a way to accommodate WWE. My suggestion would be to center it around the weekly flagship product, Monday Night RAW, and comments/updates about the other weekly shows could just go in that RAW thread if anything notable happens.

We could have separate posts for the PPVs - which are what, once every 2 months or so?

WWE is not a sport. It's really a fictional story about athletes; just one where the actors do their own stunts. It's 100% about story lines and characters and lends itself really well to discussion and predictions and hopes and fears about where the stories/characters are going. Yes there are other places on the internet where WWE is discussed but I have not found one with people as smart and awesome as Metafilter has.

I just want somewhere awesome to express my wrestling feels. I am not asking for it right now on such a new site but it'd be great if you could keep an open mind about the possibility.
posted by misskaz at 1:31 PM on May 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I just want somewhere awesome to express my wrestling feels.

*cough*
posted by Etrigan at 3:13 PM on May 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Btw, I just noticed this (sorry if it's been mentioned): there's only room for one more sub site link at the top of each main page. So it better be a good one! :)
posted by Melismata at 3:40 PM on May 10, 2014

What do you mean?
posted by ODiV at 4:25 PM on May 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Suggestion: could the post title also have a field for date of original broadcast?
posted by Gyan at 8:49 PM on May 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I read some of the Gawker's Morning After as I was curious about the high minded discussions they were proposing to have. I'll just leave you with these, er, sentences, from the middle of a review: "But when Brunette Wife runs into the room Blonde Wife is suddenly like "Eff you. I don't know you, take a hike." Tragic! Feels!"

I don't know what they're doing with "some of the strongest and sharpest voices in television writing ready to stimulate and prompt discussion" but I think they're going more in a Forever YA direction. (Nothing wrong with that, if that's what you're going for, but I'd definitely describe that differently.)
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:30 PM on May 10, 2014

I think FanFare might be a good catalyst for introducing the ability to "subscribe" to a thread (or a series/topic of threads, past and future) without necessarily commenting in it, but the model would probably need to be different than Recent Activity's.

My ideal MyFanFare page would probably be a concise list of subscribed shows/threads with an indication of how many new comments there have been since the last time you've viewed each thread, sortable by lastest-comment. (This is, incidentally, largely how Stavros' site works.)

But I know that keeping track of "new" comments with that level of granularity has been deemed unfeasible here in the past, so a compromise approach could be to at least indicate on the MyFF page the timestamp of the most recent comment in each thread (and allow sorting by that info).

The issue I'm trying to solve is how to easily keep track of multiple series' threads without having entire seasons' worth open, each in separate tabs, on the off chance someone comments in an older one.

A stopgap approach -- until MyFF is eventually set up -- would be to include the latest comment's timestamp for each thread on the show/category pages, which would at least let the reader refresh one page per show instead of one page per episode/thread.
posted by nobody at 4:46 AM on May 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

The "Season" menu only goes up to 30, and Saturday Night Live is on its 39th.
posted by Etrigan at 4:53 AM on May 11, 2014

Talking of subscribing, will there be per thread RSS feeds containing the post + comments like there are for the other sub-sites?
posted by bjrn at 5:15 AM on May 11, 2014

You should be able to select 39 now, Etrigan.

Yes, we'll add per thread RSS to our list bjrn.
posted by pb (staff) at 5:53 AM on May 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

The thread RSS feeds should be up and running now.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:18 AM on May 11, 2014

Wow, that was quick. Thanks pb!
posted by bjrn at 6:49 AM on May 11, 2014

We've said a couple times now that in the case of something like a UK-first show, post after the end of the final first-airing in UK is fine.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:54 PM on May 11, 2014

Nthing that the background be changed to a darker color than to current blinding white. My husband just complained to me that the brightness from my laptop screen is waking him up, whereas he doesn't seem to be bothered by the other subsites.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:43 PM on May 11, 2014

Just to help calibrate the no-spoilers-on-the-frontpage thing: What do the mods think about the level of detail in this week's Hannibal post? It does seem to reveal major plot points that folks who haven't seen the last few episodes wouldn't know about, but I'm not sure if it would count as a violation. I guess there's kind of an art to posting a "summary" on the front page that doesn't reveal anything important in the latest episode, but what about posts that assume knowledge of recent events from previous episodes?
posted by mediareport at 4:05 AM on May 12, 2014

Good question... which I'll wait for Matt or Cortex to address, because I'm pretty close to the I DON'T EVEN OWN A TV* mod, and can't possibly gauge this without flag help (this one hasn't been flagged). Matt okayed it, so I would say that at first blush it looked okay. I don't really see how it would be possible to have any summary at all if you don't allow anything from previous episodes, but vaguer is better than more specific. So instead of saying something like (using one example of something that we discussed before posting the first GoT episodes) the episode "covers the events leading up to the royal wedding between Joffrey and Margaery at King's Landing," we went with "covers the events leading up to the royal wedding at King's Landing."

* I do have a TV! but don't watch it a lot, and don't have access to most of the shows listed on FanFare
posted by taz (staff) at 4:39 AM on May 12, 2014

I'm voting with lalex that making East Coasters wait seems unnecessary. There might have been a reason you decided this that I don't remember, but the front page posts are always live for the east coast, and the Fanfare posts can't get into your recent activity by accident.
posted by jeather at 5:19 AM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I find the commentary about the shows discussed on Metafilter more interesting than some of the shows themselves.
This isn't a hoity-toity 'meh' aside - the intelligent and lively discussions have clued me onto several excellent programs I might have otherwise ignored.
Many thanks!

In addition to the usual case of beer, it's my opinion that pb also deserves a title and a coat of arms for his exhaustive efforts putting the wheels on FanFare.

I'm looking forward to a lot of fun.
posted by Pudhoho at 6:03 AM on May 12, 2014

Pudhoho: In addition to the usual case of beer, it's my opinion that pb also deserves a title and a coat of arms for his exhaustive efforts putting the wheels on FanFare.

Ser Poul of House Bausch. Sigil: A gold raven clutching a quill pen on a field of blue. Words: I fixed it.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:21 AM on May 12, 2014 [7 favorites]

FWIW, as a West Coaster I have no problem with posts going live on East Coast time.

the intelligent and lively discussions have clued me onto several excellent programs I might have otherwise ignored.

For me, that would be Hannibal. I thought I could binge-watch it so I could catch up to the conversation here, but wow, no, it's just too, too, intense. Also, I like watching it at night with the lights off but last night I watched S1E10 (Buffet Foid) and it was so scary I kept the lights on even when I went to sleep!
posted by Room 641-A at 6:44 AM on May 12, 2014

Can't the west coasters just... wait until they've watched the episode before clicking into the thread? I have no idea why east/central people should have to wait to post. I mean, I'm a season behind on Hannibal and I just avoid those threads. As long as there aren't spoilers on the front page, there should be no problem.
posted by desjardins at 7:04 AM on May 12, 2014

"There might have been a reason you decided this that I don't remember..."

They don't want liveblogging. I don't see a reason to wait just as long as liveblogging isn't allowed.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:48 AM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yep, it was to prevent live-blogging, since when the site launched, the feeling in these threads was that half the people participating REALLY WANTED LIVEBLOGGING and the other half really didn't. I noticed that new TWOP Gawker site is purposely called something like "morning after" and they do their posts the next day, so waiting 3hrs isn't the worst, but yeah, if we can eliminate live-blogging, we could post them earlier, but that's asking the community to use some restraint as well as flagging if they see it happening. Stuff like Game of Thrones episodes are so anticipated I think a lot of non-EST members would have trouble not posting in the threads before they air over here.

I'll reconsider this in the future if we can be assured there's no live-blogging.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:02 AM on May 12, 2014

Yeah, if we're voting I think it's better to just have people wait because then we're gong to get into rules-lawyery "What is liveblogging, what if I'm just posting while a show is on?" stuff that is relevant for East Coasters and not West Coasters and that seems even more uneven than the current East Coasters get the thread later than West Coasters do.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:05 AM on May 12, 2014

I understand not wanting liveblogging, because in retrospect it's pretty annoying, but I would sometimes like to actually discuss the show while it's fresh. (Mostly this is irrelevant for me, as there are very few shows I watch the day they air. But in theory, and for those few shows.) Although I understand not wanting to moderate it, I think that right now, while we're still sort of figuring out how FanFare works, it would be nice to see if after first airing will work out or if it ends up liveblogged, instead of trying to add in the rule change afterwards.
posted by jeather at 8:13 AM on May 12, 2014

I think it's worth experimenting with post-first-airing thread creation. The concern is that West Coasters would jump into the in-progress thread two hours later and start live-blogging in the middle of the existing conversation?

(That said, I'd understand if the rationale -- at least during the beta -- were that the west coast mods don't want to have to moderate threads for episodes they haven't seen yet but are planning to watch two hours later. But as the subsite expands that's sure a lot of by-appointment TV watching?)
posted by nobody at 8:35 AM on May 12, 2014

the feeling in these threads was that half the people participating REALLY WANTED LIVEBLOGGING and the other half really didn't.

I really wanted liveblogging but got over it pretty fast. I miss it a lot less than I thought I would, and also it's making me more popular on Twitter since I'm putting more thoughts out there.

And isn't that what we all want, in the end? Twitter clout?
posted by sweetkid at 8:39 AM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Rock Steady: "Ser Poul of House Bausch. Sigil: A gold raven clutching a quill pen on a field of blue. Words: I fixed it."

The sigil of House Bausch, Lords of the Ponylands and Wardens of the Code.

I modified the house words to "It Should Be Fixed," both to represent House Bausch's strong feeling that All Bugs Should Be Fixed (Unless They Are Actually Features), and because of pb's habit of saying "It should be working now."
posted by ocherdraco at 8:43 AM on May 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

that new TWOP Gawker site is purposely called something like "morning after" and they do their posts the next day

They're also doing liveblogs of some shows, like last week's SNL:

At Morning After, we feel like as long as we're watching we might as well watch it together. You wanted a place to discuss this stuff live, and here it is. Give us your screengrabs, your gifs, your video clips and your best material, and let's get started.

They didn't get a lot of participation on that one, but I'll bet they try more.

Matt, any thoughts about the spoilers issue in the Hannibal post?
posted by mediareport at 9:02 AM on May 12, 2014

The Hannibal post is in tricky borderline for me; on the one hand, it's pretty terse and vague, on the other hand it does sort of touch on some concrete recent-episode plot point stuff in a way that's arguably a little spoilery.

I feel about it about the same way I feel about actual synopses on Netflix etc., which I mostly try to ignore when queuing up an episode. My personal preference would be for people to try and be more oblique above the fold than that, but this is much more a matter of degree than the notional problematic spoilers-above-the-fold examples we had in mind originally.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:12 AM on May 12, 2014

I think if you just make it clear that the rule is "No Liveblogging Allowed" and thread readers are quick to flag any they see starting up that having the threads up after the first airing on the East Coast (or wherever) should be fine.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:19 AM on May 12, 2014

Either way, someone is going to have to wait a few hours to post. I think it could just stay as it is. When the threads open, all US viewers will have been able to see it, and everyone is able to comment on what are almost all US-based shows that they've seen. Currently the threads aren't even set to close, ever. So I think having everyone have access to the thread at the same time works, rather than anybody having thoughts so extra special they just have to be the first to post. If the revelations are that mind-blowing, save them, shore them up, and they can be even better when they get posted later that day, or the next day. And if they are that mind-blowing, nobody will have thought of them anyway, right. We're valuing quality over anything, aren't we? Depth over speed? I think the East Coast people will live.
posted by cashman at 10:59 AM on May 12, 2014

I'm thinking of this more from the perspective of a lurker/reader than as a frequent commenter. I couldn't care less about "thoughts so extra special they just have to be the first post" (which seems to me an unfair description of the enthusiastic) but I know that right after watching something is when I'd especially care enough to want to read people chiming in about it. So if I were on the West Coast (and if I even had broadcast/cable TV to watch things as they air!) I'd be happier to have an in-progress thread to read through once the show is done. On the East Coast, as-is, I'd pretty much have to care enough to check in the following morning.

(I'm assuming -- as with the other major subsites -- readers will end up outnumbering commenters by a big margin?)
posted by nobody at 11:28 AM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

The Hannibal post is in tricky borderline for me...My personal preference would be for people to try and be more oblique above the fold than that, but this is much more a matter of degree than the notional problematic spoilers-above-the-fold examples we had in mind originally.

Yeah, my feelings exactly. There really is an art to posting "above the fold" in ways that don't ruin the episode, the last few episodes, or even the ongoing season for folks who watch on DVD, and the best TV sites have mastered that. It's harder to control here, where the content is completely fan-written, but it would be nice if reading FanFare's front page didn't regularly entail spoiling major plot points from the last few episodes, and the mods might have to enforce that if they don't want folks to avoid FanFare's front page.

That Hannibal post seems to me to have come really close to crossing the line.
posted by mediareport at 11:40 AM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Hannibal post is in tricky borderline for me; on the one hand, it's pretty terse and vague, on the other hand it does sort of touch on some concrete recent-episode plot point stuff in a way that's arguably a little spoilery.

To be fair, the current Game of Thrones post is a bit like this too, in that the above-the-fold description is a list-of-vague-things-that-happened-this-episode.

It's tough to write a synopsis that gives a decent flavor of an episode without being too specific. Move the slider too far towards safety and you end up with all of them being very generic "in this episode, conversations are had and things happen" placeholders.

And a question: what does "we'd like the front page of FanFare to be spoiler-free" really mean, in practice? Spoiler-free for anyone who hasn't seen the most recent episode? Because even the most vague descriptions of the newest episode might allude to specific plot in previous episodes. For someone coming to a show cold, or catching up from a few episodes ago, that might still be spoilery. ("There's a wedding?") The line gets very fuzzy very fast.

(Incidentally, this suggests that the FanFare Archive page is a safer way in for the super-spoiler-adverse than the front page or the individual show pages, because it doesn't show the episode summaries.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:41 AM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

(on non-preview, what mediareport said.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:41 AM on May 12, 2014

I'd be inclined to use a memorable line from that episode above the fold instead of a plot description, but essentially I just try to blur everything but episode titles when I scan the front page and it works okay.
posted by jeather at 11:43 AM on May 12, 2014

It's tough to write a synopsis that gives a decent flavor of an episode without being too specific.

Sure, but that's what the "more inside" is for. You can spoil away there, but the opening lines that appear on the front page are, I suggest, *not* the place for a synopsis, vague or not. I suppose those first few lines really do act primarily as a "placeholder," and all that's being asked is that specific plot reveals - even from the last 5 episodes, say - be kept out of the part of the post that appears on the front page.

But I agree the line gets fuzzy very fast. The Hannibal post and the GoT post come close to crossing it, for no good reason that I can see.
posted by mediareport at 11:45 AM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

We've got to get Matthew Weiner to write them. "Hannibal cooks a meal, while Will sweats. There is an outlandish murder." or "A dour Stannis gets bad news. Varys alludes to something, and Dany and her pets struggle."
posted by Rock Steady at 12:30 PM on May 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

royalsong's post on Elementary's kidnapping episode (SPOILER, obviously) was a particularly good example of how to not-spoil above the fold, I think.
posted by Etrigan at 12:35 PM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'd hide the synopses in a heartbeat if I had the option. No matter how slyly they're written, they're kind of spoilery by definition. I don't even care about individual event spoilers, but seeing a summary of the episode laid out for me is kind of a bummer if I haven't caught up on that show, even if the details are kept super vague.
posted by dialetheia at 1:04 PM on May 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I don't see why there needs to be any content in a FanFare episode post at all. It's the exception to the site standard and a post really is about only the discussion.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:50 PM on May 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

I like having a little bit of description just because episode titles are often not helpful in telling which episode they're talking about.
posted by Etrigan at 4:33 PM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Only one use of the death tag? And only one use of the sex tag!!
Also, FanFare doesn't feature in the site search.
posted by unliteral at 7:21 PM on May 12, 2014

Question: for 2 hour premieres or finales, which are often called episodes 1-2 or 21-22, with two titles but essentially one long plot, what are we supposed to do? I'd be inclined to use the first episode number for a premiere and the last for a finale, but I could see using the first for both. I'd assume for the title it would be something like First title/Second title?
posted by jeather at 8:00 PM on May 12, 2014

The 24 season premiere was split into two posts, if we want to go by precedent. (So was Louie's, but it was two separate stories; FX is just weirdly doubling them up this season.)
posted by Etrigan at 8:27 PM on May 12, 2014

Can someone please queue a post for Blacklist? I have Strong Feelings about Tom!

I got a 24-hour delay to posting reminder which if the queue will be moderated seems a bit pointless.

Also for episode summaries, couldn't we agree to use the TV listing summaries for above the fold and personal notes below? Then there's no more risk of spoilering than what the general news coverage ahead of a show has.
posted by viggorlijah at 1:43 AM on May 13, 2014

Can someone please queue a post for Blacklist?

This brings up another question: how do we feel about hatewatching? I assume drive-by threadshits will be modded as on the blue, but if we have clear, articulated reasons why we hate a certain show, and actually watched the episode in question, then that is in the clear? Because I have a lot of Blacklist animosity to spread around.
posted by Think_Long at 7:04 AM on May 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

This brings up another question: how do we feel about hatewatching?

I will save a place for you on the couch.

But seriously: I think hatewatching is a perfectly valid form of fandom, if it comes from a place of "I like what this show [was|could have been], and here's why I hate how this show [has changed|failed to live up to its promise]." And if you accept the fact that other people do like what the show actually is.

But if you just wander into a Bob's Burgers discussion and start off with "I hate adult cartoon shows because cartoons are for kids and I cannot believe that you people watch this stuff unironically," then that's not hatewatching. That's just being a dick.
posted by Etrigan at 7:26 AM on May 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

I feel like hatewatching or snarkwatching older shows is fine but assuming some current show is AOK for hatewatching might be a dicier proposition. And there's the everpresent "read the room" It's fine to be all "Awww man I really wish most of the characters on this show didn't suck this season" or something but if that doesn't start a conversation then maybe just leave it alone.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:31 AM on May 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

It might be fun to deliberately watch a terrible old show that everyone hates from the beginning and deconstruct it in painful detail. Like some half season burnoff sitcom from the nineties.
posted by Think_Long at 7:46 AM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Like the How Did This Get Made? podcast, but for TV. I nominate Charles In Charge, because I have fond memories of it, but I'm sure it's just because I was a kid and didn't realize it sucked.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:45 AM on May 13, 2014

Like the How Did This Get Made? podcast, but for TV.

Guys, this episode.

was.

BANANAS.

- every thread
posted by Think_Long at 9:54 AM on May 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Rock Steady: "Like the How Did This Get Made? podcast, but for TV."

How It's Made, TV:

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11

It's been on my FPP to-do list for over a year.
posted by zarq at 10:05 AM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Keywords in the title notwithstanding, How It's Made is a very different entertainment product from How Did This Get Made. Although I would also enjoy seeing Paul Scheer narrate bizarro fabrication montages.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:12 AM on May 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

And I want to hear the strangely accented narrator of HIM reading Jason Mantzoukas lines from HDTGM.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:17 AM on May 13, 2014

How It's Made is a very different entertainment product from How Did This Get Made.

Well, for one thing the podcast is less likely to sedate the listener. :)
posted by zarq at 10:30 AM on May 13, 2014

My own feeling about super-negative commentary about a show, based upon reading TWoP threads for years and years, is that people strongly making an argument for what's wrong with an episode or even the show in general is fine (though it can upset fans) as long as it's substantive and not repetitive.

The last bit was really important to me. Even when I agree with the criticism, seeing the same criticism week after week from the same person very quickly begins to look very unproductive and self-indulgent of them.

It can be a subtle distinction to pin down because pretty often shows go off the rails and people have the same criticisms every week because, well, it's an ongoing (and often worsening) problem. But, I don't know, it's like there's the group of people who you know why they're still watching and they're still trying to find good things to get from it, and then I suppose the people who are just hatewatching but don's say much because they'd just be repeating themselves, and then there's the people who just repeat the recitation of what they hate over and over and over. And that is ... unbelievably annoying. I'd really like to not see that.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:50 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Count me in for a synopsis toggle option. If the OH SHIT moment happens Act 1 Scene 1 and the rest of the episode is followup to that, there's no way to not spoil it for yourself without being super-careful about browsing the FF front page until you're caught up on shows with OH SHIT moments.
posted by griphus at 3:03 PM on May 13, 2014

I've already made a post on Last Week Tonight and plan to make more each week.

Also I'm working on one to start us off on (GULP) Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'm considering organizing a weekly Metafilter viewing session for that, actually, using sync-video.com to keep everyone matched up. Anyone here interested in that?
posted by JHarris at 3:12 PM on May 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

YES. YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!! HELL'S BELLS YES DAMMIT YES!


Maybe.
posted by zarq at 3:18 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

We added a recap widget to pages, you should see the option on the right side of the page below the tags widget. Feel free to add some for pages while we tweak the display of it slightly.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:27 PM on May 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

Hm. That's one "maybe" then. (I'm an internet pessimist.)

I just saw above that mathowie suggests that discussion threads could be used to organize rewatching parties, so I suppose what I will do is post first and then we could use that to talk about getting people together to watch.

BTW, I'd like to say that starting us off on MST is:
A. not intended to be me "claiming the right" to post about the series with any regularity, and

B. actually I really hope I'm not the only one posting episode discussions.

Because there's a hundred and ninety-eight hour-and-a-half episodes of the show, with nearly 170 of those on YouTube, and if I did one a week I'd be at it for nearly four years, and that's not even getting into other things like specials, the movie, RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic, etc. I love MST, but it's already taken over as much of my life as I dare. Isn't that right Crow Puppet? ("Bite me!")
posted by JHarris at 3:27 PM on May 13, 2014

(Actually, removing KTMAs, the number is probably around 150, maybe more if some deleted eps have since been reposted.)
posted by JHarris at 3:29 PM on May 13, 2014

Assuming this takes off, I will post MST3K episode discussions.
posted by zarq at 3:31 PM on May 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

mathowie: "We added a recap widget to pages, you should see the option on the right side of the page below the tags widget. Feel free to add some for pages while we tweak the display of it slightly."

Thanks! Very cool!
posted by zarq at 3:34 PM on May 13, 2014

Here's what the sidebar looks like on the latest Louie post (look to the right, below tags).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:36 PM on May 13, 2014

I've added recap links from BB and AV to the Orphan Black pages.
posted by zarq at 3:37 PM on May 13, 2014

The recap thing will be helpful, because I already have five recaps, from various sites, of the first episode of MST3K as part of my post.
posted by JHarris at 4:10 PM on May 13, 2014

Here's a screenshot of the add a recap widget. The "I wrote this" checkbox means that writeup title will get a little MeFi favicon next to it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:25 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just wondering - would it be considered ok etiquette for people to post in the last episode thread when/if they've submitted the new episode post to the moderation queue? I'm more of a lurker than a poster, so, I tend to keep refreshing the Fanfare/show pages, thinking maybe I should submit a post, but then the bystander effect kicks in as I figure someone must have submitted already, or multiple someones and I don't want to create more work for the mods.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:28 PM on May 13, 2014

The mods aren't taking very long to approve FanFare posts -- I've done three, and I think the average "lag" time is under ten minutes. Go ahead and do it if there isn't one on the page yet.
posted by Etrigan at 8:31 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

muuh i want lacrosse werewolves

(but <3 mods)
posted by Quilford at 11:51 PM on May 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

mzurer: “Any plan for some kind of "My Shows" functionality? Sort of pre-favoriting any post in a list of subscribed-to shows?”

cortex: “It's a tricky one because the last thing we want is people getting accidentally spoilered on their favorite show because they're a couple days behind and the system decided to Be Helpful. So the basic idea is good, the question of how to manage it needs to be talked out.”

With all the shows being posted, the vast majority of which I'll never watch, I'd like to be able to see a page with just posts for shows I've selected. I'd say it's up to me to stay out of threads for shows I haven't watched. As long as the above-the-fold descriptions are no more specific than the cable guide, I don't see a problem.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:39 PM on May 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oooh I just saw the index pages for the individual shows, they look great! e.g.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:31 AM on May 15, 2014

ob1quixote: With all the shows being posted, the vast majority of which I'll never watch, I'd like to be able to see a page with just posts for shows I've selected.

Yes! Like My Ask and My Mefi.
posted by Pronoiac at 5:59 AM on May 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think the "This will appear on the front page. No spoilers here please. Hint: you can find good dry episode descriptions on wikipedia or the show's network site" is a bit unclear.

What's a "dry" episode description?

Something like "This will appear on the front page. Please do not reveal major plot points from the episode or season in this section. Non-spoiling plot descriptions can be found at Wikipedia or the show's network site if you'd like help."

The "or season" seems important to include, if nothing else.
posted by mediareport at 8:47 AM on May 15, 2014

Also, just curious: have any posts been deleted yet for being too spoilery?
posted by mediareport at 8:48 AM on May 15, 2014

I flagged (and the mods deleted) a comment earlier today from last week's The Americans post that was a reference to the current episode. It wasn't a huge OMG spoiler but it was definitely about something that hadn't happened yet. It's very possible that the poster just put it in the wrong episode by mistake so it was may have been more about being a technicality rather than a matter of interpreting the spoiler poilciy.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:04 AM on May 15, 2014

That's a good re-write mediareport, I'll update the page with it soon.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:00 PM on May 15, 2014

...so I guess I'm the only one who watches the ridiculousness that is Grey's Anatomy?
posted by Night_owl at 9:50 PM on May 15, 2014

Is there going to be regular show posts, or will it be left to whoever wants to post about a show? I'm wondering for somewhat obscure-to-metafilter shows that get zero or 1-3 comments, if there will be a decision to trim them from the site.
posted by viggorlijah at 10:27 PM on May 15, 2014

I think we'll just let them naturally atrophy. FanFare isn't perfectly right for every show ever made. It seems to be working best for ongoing, new shows as they play. Doing old episodes of other stuff will be problematic without organized rewatches and whatnot.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:44 AM on May 16, 2014

...so I guess I'm the only one who watches the ridiculousness that is Grey's Anatomy?

Nope, I'm here.
posted by purpleclover at 6:19 PM on May 20, 2014

...so I guess I'm the only one who watches the ridiculousness that is Grey's Anatomy?

I've watched multiple [non-consecutive] seasons of it, but am not currently watching. (I've gotten sucked back in before.) I did read the finale recap to find out what happened, though.
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:46 AM on May 21, 2014

So... The Call the Midwife Season 1, Episode 1 post is pretty much about the whole run of the show so far instead of the series premiere as an episode. Is that just what we should expect from older shows out on DVD?
posted by ODiV at 10:57 PM on May 22, 2014

Should have said "thread" instead of "post", sorry.
posted by ODiV at 11:20 PM on May 22, 2014

Maybe someone should post a season or series finale episode thread to move the run-of-the-show discussion into? I haven't got around to watching Call the Midwife yet, though it's in my Netflix queue for someday, so I'm going to stay out of the thread. I can understand a thread drifting into general show discussion when it's a series that most US viewers are binge-watching, but it's not ideal.
posted by oh yeah! at 4:43 AM on May 23, 2014

With the popularity of certain shows (Hannibal) on FanFare, and the discontent with the white background, perhaps another color is in order? The Scarlet? The Carmine?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:01 PM on May 29, 2014

popularity of certain shows (Hannibal)

If Hannibal is going to be our guide, FanFare is going to end up being a flamboyant plaid...
posted by sparkletone at 4:56 PM on May 29, 2014

Dunno if HannibalFF really works.
posted by unliteral at 10:33 PM on May 29, 2014