I'm saying think first, then post.

Thing is? I suspect that most people who post there probably would say that they do that.

People should be able to count on reading something that they themselves would either feel comfortable posting or at least could see how someone else could.

Again, I suspect that most people do think they are posting something that another person might post. I just think that relying on their good judgement -- which, if I understand, is what you're asking for -- is what people are doing right now anyway.

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So, for me, that's the bottom line. People are being asked to use good judgement for posts in Press. What's causing the problem is that Your Judgement Varies (ain't not May about it, really), and I don't see that changing. And I don't think it should.

Edited to take away something that was supposed to be funny but probably wouldn't come across that way at this juncture.

FWIW, my rule of thumb is simply "one degree of separation" for what's worth putting in Beep Me or Press. Asking for health-ma for your accupuncturist's cousin always makes me roll my eyes. Mentioning your mother is dying of cancer I understand. Aside from getting the well-wishing, and prayers, it alerts the community that you're under stress.

I don't feel like Press is being abused, but I hope that one outcome of this conversation is just to put a little hesitation into everybody's head about when they should post. It doesn't have to be something applicable to the whole board, but it should be something with wide interest. But I think it's fine if somebody announced that tickets were going on sale for a huge Sondheim festival, or that ASH was making a guest appearance on 24, or if they just published an article in a magazine.

If you're going to take a long hiatus, for work or personal reasons, or leaving the board I think it's fine to announce. If you're gone for the weekend I don't really think that's beep-worthy. In fact, anything less than a week is probably not worth noting there.

Is the problem just the number of posts, or is length also a factor? If length matters, maybe we could ask people with longer messages to link to them, rather than posting the whole thing.

Ok, now I feel bad.

I posted in Press before I got to this thread. (I read the shorter ones first).

I'm thinking my post was appropriate, but now I'm not terribly sure. Should I have done something different?

I feel like it's an obligation for posting at this board to read Press. To be sure, it's a "soft" obligation, distinguishable from "hard" obligations like our policies on civility and spoilers. Nothing is going to happen to you if you decide not to, but most people here do it anyway because it's part of being a Good Citizen Buffista.

I don't believe our responsibilities to be a Good Citizen Buffista extend this far. I think a GCB may include to respecting other posters, participating in conversation, not spamming the board and follwing our rules of ettiquette. I think you can be an engaged and active Buffista without reading Press.

I went back to the old Bureaucracy Thread on WX to see what the discussion was around the creation of Press. Surprisingly, there was little discussion or agonizing. The only hard and fast rule was announcements only, no natter. (Discussion is here: [link]

That said, there are few posts early on that don't relate to F2F and other board activities, local social activities, notices that would now go in "When come back bring tape" and announcements from the ME-dom. There were a only a handful, and nobody seems to have commented on them as being inappropriate or not. And at that time, Stompies were actively present in the thread--trying out stomp out natter. I'm not sure if they were considered fine from the beginning, or if they were unnoticed because of thier low number.

So I would agree there has been thread drift, from the implied intentions of the thread, but I don't know that those original intentions were ever codified anywhere, so it's hard for the many people who have joined us in the past to years to read our collective Buffista mind.

Don't worry about it, Heather. We haven't changed the rules, most people feel like "leave it be", we're discussing the discussion now.

There's a casting spoiler for Angel in the Firefly thread post #5750 ... is there a Stompy about? My eyes! My eyes!

(Or is this supposed to go in BBB? Well, Consuela got it in that one)

Probably cereal:

Heather, don't feel bad. Nothing has changed at this point, also, what Shawn said. (And break a leg to your sister).

I've been reading with interest over the past 3 days about Press.

Before I start, I would like to flatly state that I, for one, am very appreciative that Elena was flexible about moving DM notices to the Deathmatch thread. I know she didn't want to and I appreciate her ability to do something she didn't want to do to assauge other members.

I don't have any issue with 99% of what happens in Press. I am not a fan of political announcements one way or the other, but I know others aren't keen on them and so when I see them, I cringe. But I also skim it.

I don't have a problem with anyone saying, "Hey! Wanna get together here! or wanna do this if you are in the area?" in Press because that's sort of how I remember it being intended. And even if I can't go, I don't mind reading about people planning things. I also don't know and can't tell, but I don't think anyone else has issues with these kinds of posts.

The reason I found DM notices bothersome is because of the frequency with which they happened. They happened whenever a DM was going on. When Elena restarted them or when she was gone for two weeks and then came back to start again? Those made perfect sense to me because there had been a significant break in time. The ones that were made from dayish-to-dayish just seemed redunandant and irksome because Press is the one place I make time to read everytime I read the board.

However, I didn't care enough to bring it up or make an issue out of it. I figured I'm canterkous, cranky and it was my ish. But the thing is, it wasn't just my issue. It's other people's issue too. So when someone did say, "I prefer we not do this" I totally agreed.

So maybe it comes back to this. If X number of people do have an issue with any specific thing posted in Press, maybe we should talk about it and, for the sake of monkey grooming, whoever is doing the posting should consider not doing it. In much the same way we deal with people who are not fitting into board culture (X number of people have to ask for something to be done), we could deal with cessation of certain types of posts.

So maybe it comes back to this. If X number of people do have an issue with any specific thing posted in Press, maybe we should talk about it and, for the sake of monkey grooming, whoever is doing the posting should consider not doing it. In much the same way we deal with people who are not fitting into board culture (X number of people have to ask for something to be done), we could deal with cessation of certain types of posts.

This seems fair, and goes back to the consensus culture we've always had. One thing that's clear is that Press doesn't have one use within the culture. Different people use it differently. For some people Press is the only way they can keep up with the community. For other people, it's simply another thread that they're plowing through, and the traffic in Press isn't that high.

I don't think Heather's recent post (to use that as an example) is problematic. I think it's a useful example because it's not obviously of broad interest to the board's realm of interest, or to a large population of the board. But it's better than spamming the threads with it, and there may be lurkers in the Austin area who would be interested. I think there's too much skipping and skimming in Natter to effectively make announcements there.