New CT poll in development - your two cents, please

[Ellemeno]

Hi Friends,

I want us to get back on track, but what is the track?  I've decided to develop a poll asking people what they want most on Chez Tremblay and from Chez Tremblay.  Please add your ideas here, or PM me.  You can include what you want of BetterMost as a whole, if you need to, but I am focusing right now on our Chez Tremblay forum. 

After I receive ideas of what to include in the poll, I'll create the poll and post it, asking you to indicate which of the choices are priorities for you.  Feel free to get creative in what to include, and feel free to think back to what you have loved most in your time together. 

Clarissa
Ellemeno
CT co-moderator

[Front-Ranger]

Two things. I would like to keep track of revivals of the movie, get-togethers, and events.

Also I would like to see a more beefed up discussion of the film, more organized and comparing it to others in its genre, to the story and screenplay, and to Lee's other work. (Guess I'm in denial about time passing)

[moremojo]

Hi, Clarissa--

What I'm wanting to see most of all right now from the Tremblayan community is a recognition and honoring of our history, including that which first brought us together in the first place--the shared love for two extraordinary characters and their beautiful, life-changing story. We came here to BetterMost as refugees, battered but not beaten by incredible meanness and equally confounding apathy. It is important that we remember what it feels like to be harassed and oppressed, so that we do not do the same to others, and least of all to our fellow members. Let us also remember that we, in our very name, enshrine the ongoing creativity and future legacy of an artist, a human being, named Pierre Tremblay--let us not sully his name by not living up to our very best nature, and to his ideals.

I would like us to strive collectively to be an example of an online community to others, to illustrate in our actions how a group founded in love and comradeship behaves, and what we consider valuable and worthy of our time and effort. So much wonderful things have already occurred among us...let us preserve that which is best, and forge ahead with new determination to explore and champion everything that Jack and Ennis represent. Even more than Ang, than Heath or Jake, than even Annie or any of our own members, we have been brought here by a spirit that we recognize in the shade of a Wyoming cowboy, and sometimes refer to as Jack, sometimes as Ennis, but whose true name is...Love.

Just thinkin' out loud...

Scott

[Ellemeno]

I can already see that I'm going to have a challenge distilling people's ideas into a few words on a poll.    That's okay.  Wax on, o Poets.  Or keep it brief, both okay.

[serious crayons]

OK, here's my waxing: I think we should designate the Open Forum as -- in fact, we already DO designate the OF as -- being for "discussions of the film and how it affected you." So it's the place for threads specifically about the movie (and story): interpretations of metaphors, characters' motivations, etc., as well as personal reactions to the film, such as "6 months on, where are you?" "Would you have lasted 20 years" "Use of Brokie-isms in real life" and stuff like that.

The CT board could be for Brokie-related social activities or extracurricular interests -- Brokie gatherings (both announcements of and post-gathering reports), the Heath Heath Heath and Jake Jake Jake boards, personal announcements and so on. That might make the line between CT and Anything Goes a little blurry, but perhaps CT would be for anything connected with Brokeback, and AG for anything that's not.

I think the three boards are already moving in those directions, but there's still plenty of crossover in every direction -- and sometimes some duplicated topics. I'd like to see the distinctions made more clear.

Also, IMO, we should encourage everyone at BetterMost to participate in the CT board, whether or not they frequented the PT board at imdb.

[moremojo]

Also, IMO, we should encourage everyone at BetterMost to participate in the CT board, whether or not they frequented the PT board at imdb.

Yes, I second that--everyone should feel welcome Chez Tremblay, regardless of how they came to be there.

[RouxB]

my short and sweet

I would like to see CT remain kinda in it's free form state but with specific topics like discussion of movie themes, fan fiction etc. moved to other forums-well pretty much like it's shaking out to be already.

I have no wax.

 

[nakymaton]

Also, IMO, we should encourage everyone at BetterMost to participate in the CT board, whether or not they frequented the PT board at imdb.

A non-Tremlayan's perspective:

I'm not sure if it's possible for a place to simultaneously exist primarily as a haven for people who became friends in another place, and to be a place that invites newcomers. No matter how friendly the original refugees are. New people change the dynamic of a place. Some people tend to find the changes invigorating; some people feel like they've lost their friends and intimacy. It's happened to other internet groups, too.

To be honest, I only posted in CT originally because 1) the one person on the board that I already knew (Meryl) was posting here, 2) the CT forum was, at the time, invisible to non-members, so I felt safer about posting personal stuff here than I did in open forums, and 3) the CT forum was a mixture of movie discussion and humor and personal stuff, and had a fun balance that was lacking in every other BBM forum that I had encountered. As all of BetterMost has grown, though, those parts of the mixture have spread out to the rest of the board.

[Front-Ranger]

Yes, Mel, that reminds me of something else I'm really missing. A place to post personal stuff without guests, hiders, and the Forest Service come snooping around. A place where I can discuss the things I would tell my closest friends (which I don't have in so-called "real life" because I'm stuck behind a computer all day!)

[serious crayons]

I'm not sure if it's possible for a place to simultaneously exist primarily as a haven for people who became friends in another place, and to be a place that invites newcomers. No matter how friendly the original refugees are. New people change the dynamic of a place. Some people tend to find the changes invigorating; some people feel like they've lost their friends and intimacy. It's happened to other internet groups, too.

I know from past conversations that Mel knows more about the dynamics of online groups than I do. But I'd just like to throw in my observation that the makeup of the groups who post regularly on CT and on the OF have fluctuated quite a bit since I've been here. Some people run out of things to say about BBM or get involved in "real life" things and fade  , some feel tied to the community in other ways and stick around  , new people come in from other boards or because they've just seen the movie recently  , and so on. From what I've seen, frequent posters on both boards (and the OF board, though not as finitely conceived as the CT board, can also feel like a fairly close-knit group) are flexible enough to adjust to, even welcome, newcomers. For example, among the people I feel closest to, a few have been here longer than I have, a few arrived fairly recently, and most are somewhere in between.

The mood could change, I suppose, if a gush of newcomers arrived and the veterans felt overwhelmed or outnumbered. But so far, it's been more of a trickle.