See, I've always thought of Press as the equivalent to the bulletin board at the local laundromat, while Beep Me is the serious thread about the stuff in a poster's personal life.

This distinction makes sense to me.

I disagree. Beep Me was proposed to help people who couldn't keep up with natter; press is a sort of alert-type thread. Even if in practice more serious posts go in Beep Me and Press is used sometimes just to sell used couches or stuff, one can certainly choose to ignore beep me (just like not everyone will read natter) but maybe should not ignore press. OTOH, I have no love for beep me's purpose, so YMMV.

Press was so that people would be able to reach more than a one-topic audience with just the one post. To stop the thread-spamming. Beep me is about the personal.

I don't think insents (unless really urgent, I guess) or GMail or "what's happening outside my window?" fall into either category, honestly.

I like the fact that this board operates as a family with a convenient place to post board-related alerts as well as personal missives, both of which I read regularly. I think more harm is being done with the second-guessing of appropriateness of posts rather than just lettings things go. In my opinion, nothing posted has risen to the level of abuse of either thread, and until that happens why chill the environment?

I hope nothing important is happening in those threads, Wolfram, because even when I do read them now, I skim. Because most often, it's not that it's something I'm not interested in (I hardly expect posters to conform to *that*), but something I don't think is a big deal.

So their effectiveness is diluted for me. When they were instituted, I thought we were gaining at least one "Heads up!" thread. NSM anymore.

I've always thought of Press as the Want Ads.

The conversation in Natter moved on, so I'll post here. I've been in meetings all freakin' day, and it's important to me, so...

I was going to respond to Sean's initial post about his feelings about the "Hollywood" thing, because his position sounded weak. He was claiming something about his career as a filmmaker, but he doesn't actually have a career as a filmmaker, so that his post was based on a false assertion about himself, and that bugged me. Then ita posted that her friends who, in fact, do have careers as filmmakers, do not share his feelings, I figured my post was a moot point. Then Sean went apeshit, which I get, because I've gone apeshit and it happens and is hugely embarassing.

And I've been piled upon for it. Which I think is reasonable.

My silence was unacceptable and I was guilty of it mostly because I thought that the pink elephant in the corner was probably feeling a great sense of shame. However, when I go apeshit, my friends will call me on it. Jesse has, ita has, Kristen...and so on. If someone is irresponsibly rude to me, my friends also speak up for me. ita has. I'm ashamed I didn't speak up for ita because I didn't want to be thought of as someone "piling on." Which made it all about me. Me = jerk.

Sean's post, and subsequent "apology" sucked. ita was polite and concise in her response to his first post, and extraordinarily classy about the second post. And again in her follow-up. Which is how ita is. Consistently, methodically fair. Sean's responses were consistently unfair, and distorted. The problem is not ita and how she argues, but Sean and how he's perceiving ita. I would suggest to you, Sean, that you either work out whatever issues you have with your perception of ita, or that you flip the internal MARCIE switch and don't read her. I think that's your loss, because you could gain a great deal of communication/rhetorical skills by reading ita and thinking about how she'd react before you post, because her great strength is in finding the heart of the matter by asking others to clarify and elaborate on a position. When I do that, I make better, stronger arguments and it makes me clearer in everyday conversation. You might have more enjoyable conversations, and at the very least, learn some valuable interviewing skills.

If you think you're in a place where you're going to explode like that again, maybe take it to LJ or some other backchannel where you can blow off steam. I've found this to be greatly helpful where I can get all the poison out of me and deal with things in a more reasonable matter. Doesn't always work, but I've not had an outburst like the one you had in some time.

But it's important for me to say to you, as someone who's been a dick (and will probably be a dick, again), that you are responsible for your reactions. The way you reacted was not ita's fault. It's yours.

He was claiming something about his career as a filmmaker, but he doesn't actually have a career as a filmmaker, so that his post was based on a false assertion about himself, and that bugged me.

Excuse me?

What, exactly, is it that lets you think you know even the first thing about me, or my life, especially my career?

I think you were better not saying anything, Allyson.

No really, what point was there to that post, other than to be deliberatly baiting for your own personal amusement, Allyson?

I'm sorry Sean. None of the several points in my post have anything to do with whether or not you're confusing something you aspire to as a career with what you actually do. I feel a great sense of sympathy for your work predicament, I've gone for a week or so without being able to find temp work while unemployed and scared, as well. It's stressful.

The points I was driving at with the example was that until I got too busy, I was planning on arguing with you as well, and could have as easily been the target of your rage-on, and also that I don't think ita was unfairly singling you out in questioning you, because I was going to as well. And I don't think we argue particularly often.

I would also like to say that this is the second time today that you've assumed insidious motives to someone (ita using you as a whipping boy, me deliberately baiting you).

I'm not out to get you. I can't speak for ita, but I don't think she, or anyone else is out to get you, either.

I'm not a psychologist, or course, but it seems that whatever is eating at you is Getting Bigger. And you're lashing out in ways that are harmful to you, and disturbing for me.