But "feature creep" was there almost from the beginning. Not a new thing. And a lot of things that are being labeled feature creep are the kind of things that would otherwise spam multiple threads -so press doing its job.. New Harry Potter coming out? Literarary, Natter and bitches... Demo in San Francisco; Natter and Bitches. In point of fact Bitches is very much a natter thread; so almost any general annoucement could go in both places.

In my mind, Press is there for things that it's important for people to know right now. Things like a new Harry Potter book coming out, it could be discussed in Literary, it could be discussed in Natter, it could be discussed in Bitches, it could be discussed in UnAmerican, and it might be discussed in all of them, when it comes up in the conversation. But it's not the sort of thing that, in pre-Press days, would be posted in every thread.

On the other hand, things like a board vote, or scheduled downtime, are things that belong there. Things like someone having a party, that info needs to get to a bunch of people within a set period of time, and the "bunch of people" isn't concentrated in any one thread, so Press works. Things like, "There's a demonstration, I'm going, anyone want to go with me?" fit into that same category. Something like, "There's a demonstration, thought maybe some of you would want to go," isn't quite the same, at least in my mind:it's more advertising and less coordinating. ("Coordinating" isn't exactly the word I want, but it's late.)

Wow, I don't recall him having a chat room, what was I posting?

Maybe he did, I was just pimping for a friend, who later gave away the site and tha person won a web design accolade for my friend's design.

Sadly? Tried to avoid spoilers, so...

For good or ill, thanks for clarifying my correction. :)

Hmmm, I am going to say what Gar said on Press.

To me it has always been the corkboard of our community. General annoucements in Press eliminated the cross posting in several threads which did bug me. Many of us skip madly or only read a small number of threads and are unlikely to see a announcement elsewhere.

1200 messages in 18 months doesn't seem to crazy to me. Most Press falls somewhere between earth-shattering news and items that are only of interest to a percentage of members. It works for me.

I could probably have said that with fewer words had there been more coffee in my system.

I'm far less opposed to the feature creep in Press -- which has abated with some gentle social pressure -- than the feature creep in Beep Me. I expect any moment to see someone post in there about stepping out for a manicure, or about their neighbor's brother getting a dog.

I'm with Gar and Laura. The only restriction that I've ever been aware of for Press is that there's no natter.

The thread blurb from WX said:

Announcements, and announcements only,

and the current thread blurb says:

Having a party? Organizing a local F2F? Know something that we all really need to know? Announce it! Want to discuss anything posted here? Take it to Natter. Any natter here will be deleted.

There's nothing that says the announcements have to be related to board business, or that the announcement would have to be relevant to every single person on the board. It seems to me that the deathmatch start-ups and all the stuff on Gar's list fall under what's appropriate.

I expect any moment to see someone post in there about stepping out for a manicure

Why stop there? I'm dark gray for at least 30 seconds every time I refill my coffee cup.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I didn't think that the deathmatch announcements were contrary to what has always been posted in Press (or to what Press was created for).

(edit) I also don't think that anything that has been posted there has been out of line. Much of what is posted there may not be important to me, but this board isn't here for just me. If there are things that the person posting the message feels are important to readers, then they should post. That not everyone reading (or skimming, or skipping) feels this importance shouldn't be an issue.

I think that this is another case of people having different ideas about why threads/rules/customs originated and their use.

And I also don't think that 'gentle social pressure' is an accurate discription of what happens when these differing ideas collide.

I haven't really felt that anything posted in Press has been totally out of line, though a few times, I've wondered whether something was really neccesary. I think that, based on how I'm remembering when Press was created (after a whole ton of all-thread spamming for some announcements), I see it as a place to post things where (a) some subset of Buffistas needs to know the information, (b) it's impossible to reach that subset by posting in a single thread, and (c) you don't know exactly who that subset is, so email isn't appropriate.

Also - remember that a thread is not just it's original purpose in creation. To the extent there may have been minor drift - it still was not outside of the title or slugs. And it happened from the beginning with no objections. It was not a long term change. To the extent there was thread drift, it drifted from close to day one.