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.

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 going light grey for five minutes while I have my coffee break!

Yeah. Sometimes it makes me laugh, but doesn't set off my batshit o'meter.

I'm careful about Press. It's a place i go when i have to send a message out to the most people, and even then, I'll x-post in Natter and the relevant threads...mostly because I'm posting about a monetary goal or something.

Celebrity deaths? I don't care, but maybe 2/3 of the rest of the community does care. I see people using it as a place for PSAs, and that's fine.

Personally, I hated the deathmatch posts, because I expect something "bigger" in Press, something that could affect the community as a whole. Feel the same way about the opening of a spoiler chat. Post it in spoilers, yo.

But the bottom line for me (and I hope I haven't hurt Elena's feelings, I know the deathmatches are important to you and to the participants), is that I'm mostly able to scroll on by, right now. If Press ends up with 40 posts per day, we have a problem in that people are placing too much importance on trivia. And what is trivial is so subjective, that I'm not sure how one regulates it.

I think that most of us-even those of us relatively new to board culture-are indeed careful about what we post in Press.

I agree with those who've said is a shift (at least as I've experienced this board) and that I think it's working just fine.

remember that a thread is not just it's original purpose in creation. To the extent there may have been minor drift

The point of Beep Me and Press is no drift.

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 going light grey for five minutes while I have my coffee break!

To be fair, though, there's been drift of the other direction in that thread, too. At least, my recollection is that there were initially a lot of "away for the weekend, see you on Monday" posts that don't come up so much now.

The point of Beep Me and Press is no drift.

I think perhaps mission creep is a more accurate term for what we're discussing here, since drift does seem to relate more to conversation in our general usage, which indeed is stomped pretty effectively.

Where the DM posts started pinging people, I think, was the repetition. That makes them, to me, a separate issue from other kinds of mission creep that people are perceiving. (FTR, I found them useful but I don't mind the loss since it did seem to be aggravating some folks.)

I do think Press posts were initially seen as items with a little more urgency to them than some of what we're currently seeing, and I wouldn't be averse to trying to encourage people to consider whether Natter or Beep Me or somewhere else might be a better option.

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.

The deathmatches come closest, the rest of it, no.

If Press ends up with 40 posts per day, we have a problem in that people are placing too much importance on trivia. And what is trivial is so subjective, that I'm not sure how one regulates it.

Occasional coughing sounds and furrowed brows when it starts to slide that way? A reminder to use your best judgement added to the slug?

I do think Press posts were initially seen as items with a little more urgency to them than some of what we're currently seeing, and I wouldn't be averse to trying to encourage people to consider whether Natter or Beep Me or somewhere else might be a better option.

Yes, this.