[META] Shaping This Forum

We have weathered a fair number of figurative storms, and the number of threads which have received fifty or more positive comments has increased greatly in the past week. This community seems to be thriving and also seems to be extremely healthy.

Our most recent challenge has been with trolling via false gatekeeping with the intention of getting the mods to damage the forum through ruthless enforcement of our new rules interpretations. That was already anticipated. We are not robots. We make judgements. Sometimes we nudge, and sometimes we drop the banhammer. The forum moves forward.

In the interest of moving forward, I would like to open a meta-discussion about directions we are headed. Originally, people were tracking retcons, discussing theoretical reasons for them, trying to establish commonalities among those who noticed retcons, etc. In the years since, we have started to discuss things in new ways.

1. For example, there are frequent "feelie" threads asking "Does anyone else feel like [X]?" I put my personal reservations about these aside because they seem to be serving a strong role in the community. While I think that the new mega-thread is a great place for this D.A.E. questions, I am not inclined to strongly enforce that, being that such threads very frequently reach fifty or more comments and almost never need moderation. Pretty much, I think that is the D.A.E. threads are clearly labelled as such, there should be no issue. The tiny minority here who find such threads tiresome can just scroll past based on the title alone while the rest of the community can enjoy them and share their experiences, feelings, etc. in them. Ultimately, I think a lot of the "feelie" threads serve a kind of counseling capacity. Some people feel alone with their understanding of retroactive continuity, and the discussions help people to feel less alone.
2. The mega-thread so far has been a partial success. We will keep it up for now. Most importantly, it gives the moderators an option for low-effort posts. We can delete them, but we can also provide a place for them.

So where are we headed? We now have an established safe space for discussing retroactive continuity without skepticism or ridicule. We have succeeded in building a loose online community with a common interest. What are the new categories? Should we come up with a F.A.Q.? We could probably use a lexicon. For example, some people use the word "evidence" when we have established the term "residue". There is probably a fair amount of jargon which has developed surrounding retroactive continuity over the years.

Ultimately, it is inevitable that this forum move beyond mere listing of retcons and residue and postulation of causes for divergent memories. As this forum develops, I expect it to transform, and it would be nice to have some clue about what directions said transformation could take. Your positive input is requested.