Movie/Game Trailers Threads in Fanfare?

February 27, 2019 4:16 PM

Just putting this idea forth for consideration/discussion: that the home for threads on trailers for upcoming movies* and video games be Fanfare, not the Blue. There's usually not much meat for substantial discussions in a 90- or 180-second video, and Fanfare's already Metafilter's friendly home to congregate and geek out about various books, movies, TV and video games.

* - some of which even get a separate FPP for each movie trailer

posted by WCityMike to MetaFilter-Related at 4:16 PM (20 comments total)

I think making space for trailers on FanFare's an interesting idea, worth chewing on at least. That said, as with a lot of other things in media, there's gonna be stuff that fits well on FanFare and also works well on the blue as part of the mix, so I don't feel a need to view it as an either/or situation.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:18 PM on February 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

I think gen 8 pokemon/detective pikachu is a perfect test case for this idea.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:48 PM on February 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

I think gen 8 pokemon/detective pikachu is a perfect test case for this idea.

I was planning on making a dedicated gaming post tonight, over on the blue that is. I realize that someone linked to it in the trailer post but I feel like the game itself deserves its own post. I was also going to run that by a mod to confirm if that was TOO much pokemon and if we should just leave well enough alone and let both happen in that thread?

So I'll ask that here, thoughts?
posted by Fizz at 6:05 PM on February 27, 2019

I'm of the opinion that Fanfare is an underserved section of the site, and that the best thing to do to boost Fanfare's popularity relative to the other subsites is make it explicitly the place to talk about non-internet media on Metafilter. I envision an era where something like "Check out this new trailer for upcoming movie" gets deleted from the blue not because it's wrong for Metafilter, but because it's in the wrong spot.

Maybe the solution is to have an "Anticipation" thread tied to an upcoming movie or TV episode, which is automatically archived once the movie or episode is released. Good use cases for this would be a thread for Detective Pikachu where people can post and discuss trailers, or a thread for the first episode of the final season of Game of Thrones where people can speculate and post news snippets. I'd say denote "anticipation" the same way threads are denoted "book only" or "show only" and make it clear that in anticipation threads spoilers beyond what's officially put out are not welcome.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:29 PM on February 27, 2019 [9 favorites]

I strongly support this suggestion.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 7:17 PM on February 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

I don't have any interest in trailer threads but I think this is just making a rule to have one, not making a rule to improve content or user experience. I don't see what problem this suggestion solves or that it's a compelling culture shift.
posted by crush at 7:51 PM on February 27, 2019 [5 favorites]

I don't think this is a good idea. Trailer posts' threads end up being broader, culturally- or personally-oriented comments, related to an unreleased piece of media. FanFare discussions are more specifically about the released show or movie that we watched.

For instance: I made a post about a Stranger Things trailer on the Blue, and if you read the comments, they're mostly not really reviews or analyses of the trailer itself, or of Stranger Things, in the way a FanFare comment would be. They're chatter, or meta-level commentary on the show, or feelings, or reflections.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:06 PM on February 27, 2019 [7 favorites]

Adding trailers might help boost FanFare's popularity, but as Harvey suggests it might also have some downsides or maybe upsides depending on how you look at it.

It does feel a bit wrong to use the blue as, essentially, an advertising spot for new movies or games, but people do like them quite a bit and as hippybear says it helps break up the monotony of serious posts that so often have a depressing element to them. At the same time, the general purpose of trailer posts seems to be out of excitement for future thing that will be released, which makes them much more "fancentric" and carries with it something of a feeling of speaking negatively about the project would be seem as "threadshitting" if not done with care or mentioned more in passing than in attempt at discussion.

The fandom issue is an uncomfortable one in that context and might make FanFare a more natural place for excitement posts as the discussion there is already centered around discussing those things. That could still leave a place for trailers to be posted to the blue when a less fan driven discussion might be welcome, but that admittedly seems an unlikely compromise to manage.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:13 PM on February 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

Can we "close" those posts on the blue with a mod note saying "This is now over on FanFare at this link", while still keeping the post itself on the main page?
posted by Etrigan at 6:02 AM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Related Mod question: there's been murmurings about a fanfare redesign for a while now, is that still a ways out? This isn't to pressure anything into happening - totally understandable with the world (and the politics threads) being what it is that stuff gets pushed out.

It'd just make sense to be able to easily and visibly connect the trailers to the movie the same way you'd connect episodes of a TV series.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:41 AM on February 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't like this idea either, for essentially the reasons Harvey Kilobit mentions. The discussion in these types of posts isn't really about the trailer, in the same way that a FanFare post is about the movie/TV show/whatever.

It also brings up spoiler issues. My understanding is that FanFare is a bit more strict about spoilers than the Blue, and discussing a trailer often gets into all sorts of grey areas spoiler-wise. Would discussion of the Detective Pikachu videogame be considered a spoiler in a FanFare Detective Pikachu movie trailer post? I don't know much about the Pokeverse, but apparently there are certain things about the appearance of the Pokemen in the trailer that clue Pokemon experts into some ideas about the plot. Would that discussion be a spoiler?
posted by Rock Steady at 8:58 AM on February 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

Persoanlly, and I don’t mean to disparage fanfare, but I never use that portion of the site. I barely use askme, just because of time constraints in my daily life. I’ve only recently been able to dip back into the the site in general, and the movie previews on the blue are often how I even find out about trailer releases, let alone have a place to talk about them.

I get that prople who love fanfare want more people on fanfare, just as people on music want more people there. I wouldn’t want posts about music or album releases shunted over there, either. I know I’m on record as being someone who’s been against change here in the past, but this is something that would change part of the user experience for me, with the need to check more of the site than I really have the time to do in order not to miss out on things the site that are part of the reason I try to make sure to at least skim the blue once a day, if I can.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:56 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

If this makes people actually watch the trailer in question before commenting, I'm all for it.
posted by Memo at 4:56 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty active on FanFare and agree that the site can and should find some way to shunt more attention there, but I don't think shunting all trailer posts to FF is the answer. I mean, a trailer is by definition pretty low on content, so (as noted above) the style of discussion that often happens on FF might not really fit a Just-the-Trailer post.

Here's an option: you know how, when an AskMe is being composed, the site suggests similar posts on Preview? Suppose it could suggest related existing FF posts in Preview when someone (i.e. someone maybe who doesn't know about FF) is working on a new trailer thread on the blue? And maybe say something like "Consider adding links to these previous related FanFare threads" to encourage people in the trailer thread who want to rehash the previous releases to go there? After all, it seems like most trailer threads are connected to existing franchises. Maybe this is too much effort coding-wise for too little payoff, I dunno.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 2:48 AM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

This post says that fanfare is the place to convene to geek out about video games. But just a couple threads down here in the grey we have a thread where we are asking for a video games to fanfare pony. Just want to make sure I’m not losing my mind and we somehow implemented that feature in the last couple days and I’m just not seeing it.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:54 AM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

I mean I could definitely be losing my mind for n other reasons but just checking in on this one...
posted by lazaruslong at 4:54 AM on March 1, 2019

This post says that fanfare is the place to convene to geek out about video games. But just a couple threads down here in the grey we have a thread where we are asking for a video games to fanfare pony. Just want to make sure I’m not losing my mind and we somehow implemented that feature in the last couple days and I’m just not seeing it.

There are already video game posts on Fanfare, but there is not a specific/formal Video Games category implemented yet (that's what the feature request is for).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:29 AM on March 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

Hot damn, that's good to know! Thank you!
posted by lazaruslong at 6:32 AM on March 1, 2019

I think this is a fantastic idea.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:46 PM on March 2, 2019

I rarely visit FanFare but I do like to see the trailer posts. So I'd have to make a specific trip to FanFare on a regular basis to look for trailers, and I'm not very interested in the rest of what's there. I do regularly (daily) look at the Blue and the Green, but then stopping by FF is an added chore I'm not likely to do. I suggest instead: save me that trip by adding a section in the right-hand sidebar in the Blue with 10-12 most recent FF posts. (And maybe do the same for the most recent AskMe's.)
posted by beagle at 9:49 AM on March 10, 2019