You look through the pile, see if there's anything for you, and you ignore the rest.

This is why every flat surface in my house looks like a paper recycling plant. And not in a good way.

I've always seen Press as just that, a version of the want ad section of a newspaper. Beep Me has always struck me as the more personal version--heck, the Personals section.

I guess I get stuck on why we have it in the first place, the whole "area where you put things so you don't have to put them in all the threads" thing. I mean, there will always be things that sort of slide into the area of "wow, that's so not press-worthy" by my litmus test, and I know my litmus test means 99% of what I'd think about posting there, I wouldn't. I know for other people, that's not so. And I'll admit, the political content in a couple, those made me really uncomfortable.

Wolfram's examples, they're good ones. And his last NSM? Funny.

The last political thing was about observers in El Salvador being detained. And it turned out that a Buffista had a friend in El Salvador who was an election observer, and did not know about this and was glad for the information. So it seems that posting that was a useful thing. Would it have been spotted in Natter by the relevent person? Maybe, maybe not. Certainly passes the "important" test. Maybe it does not pass the 100% agree with every word test. But I'm pretty sure the 100% agree with every word test is not one of the criteria for press.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure it really was particularly controversial. Certainly being against the detention of election observers is not really a left/right issue. Nor do I think many would argue that the U.S. government has no significant influence over the behavior of the Salvadoran government. But as I said, even if someone found one of these two positions controversial, don't think it rules out posting information of this sort in press, when there is something urgent to do.

I'm with all of those who are not bothered by the minimal thread drift or mission creep or whatever we're calling it. A lot of what gets posted in both Press and Beep Me is irrelevant to me, but it takes so little time to look at it and go "okay, this is not for me" and hit Message Center again. I admit I'm a little confused as to why this is becoming an issue, when it's so quick and easy to skim those threads.

Can't resist a fray, now can I?

Anyway, as I see it, Press used to be conceptually for things like fandom events, ME actor appearances, etc. Fandom things that we all wanted to know. As we got to become more of a community, and to know each other better, it included our F2F events, big and small. And then, eventually, everything else. As Plei pointed out, definitely started to avoid spamming all the threads. Which we did, because there were some events that needed broad publicity, but it was crazymaking for those of us who read every thread. What should it be? I'm not so sure.

Beep Me definitely started out with intensely important personal info, a way to keep tabs on the board members when we couldn't keep up with natter. I feel partially responsible for the going-grey and dead grandmother posts, because I know I did both of those when the thread was still fairly young (I think?). I remember thinking that people would think I'd fallen off the earth, since I was going from posting in every thread every day, to not posting at all. I had a few responsibilities. And there was some comfort in letting people know what was up, and in knowing that someone would notice if I did fall off the earth.

Later, I was really grateful for Beep Me allowing me to keep up on the pivotal events in people's lives, when I was unable to stay current on the boards. But anyway, yes, I feel like there's been feature creep, and no, I'm not too worried about it. But I wouldn't want us to stray too irrevocably from their purposes.

But as I said, even if someone found one of these two positions controversial, don't think it rules out posting information of this sort in press, when there is something urgent to do.

There is ALWAYS something urgent to do. This should fall under a categorical imperative type rule--should every time a Buffista is outraged about an international human rights violation be posted? Certainly one cannot know beforehand that a buffista has a local friend who is not keeping up with current events, so I really don't want to point to a post post hoc and say, hey, that's good use of this thread.

I know the majority is going with "let it alone." But I think these threads are not akin to a company bulletin board-- pretty much every poster will take the time to look at these posts, and there should be a concomitant consideration that people will make it worth their while.

I end up skipping a lot of things in Beep Me and Press because they are just irrelevant to my life---I'm not in an area where I can go hang out with or easily see any Buffistas so all of that has nothing to do with me.

However, I also don't have the time to read Natter or Bitches. I dropped Bitches and currently am trying to keep up with Natter but end up skipping about 500-800 posts just to skim a few hundre before I run out of time to be online. I can't even read Tim's thread anymore with out massive skimming.

I'm glad to see the posts in Press and Beep Me even if they don't necessarily apply to me becuase otherwise I'd never find out about that stuff.

Deleted due to big cross post with Askye who made every important point I made more succinctly.

Looks like Bitches is about 700 or so away from a new thread...

And? 7600 semi-slut!

I'd like to defend "going dark" messages in Beep Me, and not just because I've been guilty of them. When regular posters disappear, "where is BuffistaX" questions happen. "Going dark for a while" messages let everyone know the absent one is ok.