New Features: FanFare Talk, and Movies

July 18, 2014 9:22 AM

Today we're releasing a spot for discussing plans for TV and Movie watching (stuff like the Horror Film Club, the Summer camp series, etc) by adding a discussion area to FanFare called FanFare Talk. We're also adding the ability for new posts in the Movies section to be added by members instead of just me for the last couple months of testing. Both discussion posts and movie posts will need to be approved before going up, as TV shows still are moderated. The front page of FanFare has been updated to show the titles of recent Talk posts along with a new tab in the upper right to get to all the discussion posts.

The aim for FanFare Talk for now is to move the TV and Movie planning discussions away from MetaTalk and onto FanFare itself. If you'd like to make a new post there, pick "TV & Movie Planning" from the drop-down options on the posting page.

This isn't a general anything-goes discussion area though, we'd like to see people stick to plans for movie clubs and tv rewatches and things of that nature and not a place to open a discussion on anything related to movies or TV you feel like chatting about.

The Movies section has gone well but it's been a bit of a bear having me be the only person that can post them, forcing me to do all the movie club posts and have people wait for me to post them, etc. I think it has gone pretty weel so like TV, we're opening it up to anyone to post suggested Movies.

For now, I'd still say stick to new releases and stuff being organized in film club discussions. It doesn't mean we need a thread for Citizen Kane or the entire Star Wars universe on the first day, ideally I'd like to see Movie posts continue to be occasional and on the order of a few a week, tops.

posted by mathowie (staff) to Feature Requests at 9:22 AM (47 comments total)

Hooray! Thankyaverramuch, mathowie!

This will make the whole movie club thing much easier.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:36 AM on July 18, 2014

Yeah, should make letting you make direct movie posts and picking tags, etc tons easier too.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:41 AM on July 18, 2014

I just saw this! Woot!
posted by filthy light thief at 9:43 AM on July 18, 2014

Looks good. I'm wondering though, if not having a list of everything in discussion might lead to doubles? Like, someone decided to rewatch something that already has a rewatch going?

Although I can imagine that the list will eventually be incredibly long...
posted by nubs at 9:51 AM on July 18, 2014

...and nevermind, just saw the links for "All TV Shows" and "All Movies" in the side bar
posted by nubs at 9:52 AM on July 18, 2014

if not having a list of everything in discussion might lead to doubles?

What do you mean here? That we got rid of the long list of all shows? Or that the discussion page will have repeats?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:52 AM on July 18, 2014

Oh ok, yeah, we got rid of the massive list because it was getting too big, and instead swtiched to cover images from recently added shows/movies.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:53 AM on July 18, 2014

Will the IMDB-lookup-feature for the New Post mechanism work like the current Blue link-checking mechanism and tell you that it's a double post?
posted by shakespeherian at 9:54 AM on July 18, 2014

Also, a big time shout out to pb, who I assume is the elf who baked this particular cookie for us all.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:12 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

pb is working on a double-post checker for movies, yeah.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:12 AM on July 18, 2014

Yeah, it's all set. If you choose a movie that already exists you'll get a link to the existing post instead of the option to verify that movie.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:14 AM on July 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

And, from a person who will never use FanFare (but much love to you FanFare people), thanks very much for moving this stuff off Talk. This is a great improvement for everyone.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:21 AM on July 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

Can we use the talk page to see if anyone else is watching a show and decide whether or not it would be worth posting about it?
posted by ChuraChura at 10:31 AM on July 18, 2014

A single tear freezes on Kattullus' cheek
posted by rollick at 10:48 AM on July 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

Is FanFare talk going to be a strictly full-site thing for now? It's not on the mobile site. Which is fine, just asking.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:56 AM on July 18, 2014

DirtyOldTown, adding a FanFare Talk menu item to mobile is on my to-do list.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:57 AM on July 18, 2014

It should be there now. Click 'skip to menu' at the top of the page and then choose 'FanFare Talk'.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:03 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Holy crap, that was fast. I'ma light another candle at your shrine, friend.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:05 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Is there an RSS feed? (I tried http://feeds.feedburner.com/mefi/FanfareTalk by analogy to MusicTalk's, but it didn't work)
posted by kagredon at 11:17 AM on July 18, 2014

No, we haven't set up a feedburner feed yet. Added to our list.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:20 AM on July 18, 2014

Can we use the talk page to see if anyone else is watching a show and decide whether or not it would be worth posting about it?

Yeah, that's a perfect reason to make a post there, and why I did a Star Trek:TOS post there in that vein.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:26 AM on July 18, 2014

Sweet. Off to see if I'm the only person in love with SYTYCD!
posted by ChuraChura at 11:28 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

RSS feed is here.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:33 AM on July 18, 2014

Thanks pb and mathowie!
posted by kagredon at 11:35 AM on July 18, 2014

This is just great -- which I've meant to say in every FanFare admin announcement if I haven't.

Thanks, which I've also meant to say.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:37 PM on July 18, 2014

Just a question to both mods and members: When it comes to checking the interest in discussing a at the time starting/running and previously unposted series, should we go for a Fanfare talk thread, or just post the first episode in the series and see how it goes?

I see there are a few threads up in the former category already, but to me it seems you might as well put up a post on Fanfare and see how many people join in and whether it is worth it to keep posting new episodes. Or is that a bad idea?
posted by bjrn at 1:47 PM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

bjrn, I think it depends on the show. I posted one show (Major Crimes) because it is a new, currently running show, but there doesn't seem to be a ton of interest in it. I posted another new show (In The Flesh) because there were a few comments on the show in one of the MefiTV/FanFare MeTa threads, so I figured someone else was watching it, but I waited a while and it has been pretty quiet.

On the other hand, I was going to post a FanFare Talk thread about watching Muder, She Wrote because it's an old series, and it's 12 seasons long, with 264 episodes and 4 movies. People have mentioned that they're interested in talking about the show, but that's a lot of dedication at an episode or two a week, both to make posts for the episodes, and to slowly discuss the show. Then again, it's not too much, compared to 725 episodes in the six television series in the Star Trek universe, at one episode a week.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:10 PM on July 18, 2014

just post the first episode in the series and see how it goes?

That's what I did.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:21 PM on July 18, 2014

A policy question. What's the etiquette when someone starts a series then stops? I had Band of Brothers in mind, it seems to have stalled at two episodes, but there may be others.
posted by biffa at 3:39 PM on July 18, 2014

On the other hand, I was going to post a FanFare Talk thread about watching Muder, She Wrote because it's an old series, and it's 12 seasons long, with 264 episodes and 4 movies.

Holy cow, that's a lot of people getting murdered in the general vicinity of Jessica Fletcher. How convenient that she is always there to discover the "real killer".
posted by Flunkie at 5:01 PM on July 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

LOL, Wikipedia informs me that Cabot Cove has a murder rate 50% higher than that of Honduras.
posted by Flunkie at 5:03 PM on July 18, 2014 [6 favorites]

I wrote a song a few weeks ago called Murder She Rode that's basically a wild west showdown narrative with Jessica Fletcher as the roving gunslinging villain who shoots the sheriff.

This doesn't have anything to do with anything, really, but I spent an hour on that and I wanted to tell someone.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:47 PM on July 18, 2014 [5 favorites]

just post the first episode in the series and see how it goes?

That's what I did.

Of course, that did lead to us using the first episode to extensively discuss how we wanted to watch the series instead of actually talk about the pilot. Now that we have Fanfare Talk it seems like a nicer space to decide how to watch older series. (A currently airing show seems better suited just posting an episode.)
posted by Margalo Epps at 7:45 PM on July 18, 2014

I wrote a song a few weeks ago called Murder She Rode

But have you recorded it?
posted by Margalo Epps at 7:46 PM on July 18, 2014

I wrote a song a few weeks ago called Murder She Rode that's basically a wild west showdown narrative with Jessica Fletcher as the roving gunslinging villain who shoots the sheriff.

I'll record it! Errant can vouch for my voice.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:04 PM on July 18, 2014

I really would like to have the moderator-approved option to post a season-wide post for old shows like Murder She Wrote. Discussing it over 12+4 (for the movies) seasons seems reasonable and more likely to spark interesting conversation, but I can understand the moderators wanting to decide that as an exception to prevent people posting season-posts and episode-posts for the same show.
posted by viggorlijah at 10:20 PM on July 18, 2014

This is great, thanks mathowie, pb and co.

For those of us who don't want Masters of SEX to appear in big red letters on our computer screens at work,* are there plans to make it so that we can turn off images and return to our happy work-safe text-only viewing? Text links would be great, but a simple cookie-based hide toggle would be fine too.

* Yes, I know, I shouldn't be looking at Metafilter at work. Sometimes one needs a break, y'know?
posted by tavegyl at 2:36 AM on July 19, 2014

biffa: A policy question. What's the etiquette when someone starts a series then stops?

Unless there is some explicit agreement among the watchers that there's one specific person who will make each post then I think it's totally fair to take over. I think in general it's better if no one has to take ownership of a series, for a single person life might interfere with posting or their interest may drop.
posted by bjrn at 3:27 AM on July 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Just to be clear, I'm not intending to be completist about the entire Star Trek universe. I was going to go through one episode a week of the original series only, so that's about a year and a half of do all 79 episodes, and I was going to stop there (if it even gets that far). I figured it was a very famous old show almost everyone (but me) has seen but it's not a huge endeavor to rewatch them.

Old series are kind of weird for FanFare and I don't think it works very well for going through 12 seasons of an old show in a short period of time. 200+ posts on a single show would innudate the site in that show. We don't have "season posts" that people are describing here, everything is on a per-episode basis and it would take a lot of thinking and tinkering to redo things to allow for that.

I think FanFare Talk is good for gauging the interest in a new show or series, before I was doing a post on every episode of Maron until I got to one where I made the only comment. And I totally see that, it's a small show by a small comedian on a small network so the potential audience for discussing it here is pretty small. Since then, I haven't even finished the series on my own TiVo, much less done any more posts on it.

are there plans to make it so that we can turn off images

The images should cycle through every couple weeks as new shows/movies get added so objectionable ones should slide past pretty soon. If you want to eliminate them entirely, there are probably greasemonkey and stylish hacks to quickly hide them.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:43 AM on July 19, 2014

If you have Ad Block, you can use it to block individual images that offend.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:09 AM on July 19, 2014

mathowie, would it make sense for there to be a slot in the movie entry form for the iMDb ID for a film? (The tt08746283 or what have you.) That would greatly simplify differentiating remakes/reboots/films with the same name. It could also provide an easy way to add a useful content link pretty much automatically.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:57 AM on July 20, 2014

And one other thing... what is the stance on including a reference to clubs in a FF post? That is, are we for or against mentioning in the FF post that this is Horror Club's #X selection or what have you?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:59 AM on July 20, 2014

...would it make sense for there to be a slot in the movie entry form for the iMDb ID for a film?

When you post a movie you're prompted to select the title from a list of IMDB search results. So you are selecting a specific film. We don't link to the IMDB page anywhere like we do on the show pages for a TV series—that's something we're thinking about adding though.

what is the stance on including a reference to clubs in a FF post?

I don't have an official word on that, but it seems like it'd be fine to mention it. I know several posts have included a movie club tag. I think as long as you keep the movie club activity stuff like choosing the next film in FanFare Talk posts it'd be fine.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:51 PM on July 20, 2014

A request: On the archive page, there's a note : "Episodes with a color background have special spoiler conditions." But there's nothing indicating what the different colors mean. Could a legend be added to that page?
posted by Gyan at 12:13 AM on July 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

I really would like to have the moderator-approved option to post a season-wide post for old shows like Murder She Wrote.

This would be awesome, but if single season posts are out, what about selective rewatching? I can see how picking and choosing the best of a show might ruin it for more comprehensive rewatches, or would it? Maybe I'm just not a fan but it seems unlikely there are enough distinct groups of Murder, She Wrote fans for this to be a problem in that particular case.

But more generally, is it a hard and fast rule that every rewatch must cover every single episode? What about a single classic season, like, say, Season 4 of The Simpsons? Or does this verge into the realm of the annoying complicated?
posted by Lorin at 9:33 AM on July 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

It is not a hard and fast rule. I think if you want to do the work to organize and propose a selective rewatch that's totally fine; there's nothing to prevent someone else from saying "oh but also episode x" that's not on your notional list and posting it themselves, but that's the nature of this as basically an open forum and hopefully pretty unlikely to be a point of conflict in any case.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:55 AM on July 22, 2014

Excellent, thanks! I mean, presumably nobody would make a post out of the blue for season two, episode seven of The Sopranos, but it could definitely work for a lot of older, less serialized shows.
posted by Lorin at 10:19 AM on July 22, 2014