Laurel Touby, founder of the excellent mediabistro.com, throws swinging media mixers for writers and editors. Now it seems she's breaking up those rather large parties into smaller, distinctly class-stratified parties, such as an upcoming event which explicitly excludes freelancers and bans "networking." Not everyone is finding that freedom from the rabble so gratifying. A reader writes:

"My question to you is: why the f*#!k does Laurel Touby think she is important enough to make her ridiculous 'exclusivity' decrees for [mediabistro] parties? I haven't used mediabistro in years (used to visit the site back in the halycon dotcom boom days for 'content' writing job postings). However, I'm enraged/annoyed enough by the tone of these stupid party invites to observe that for a website with a mission statement to provide a place for 'people to find jobs, share resources, and connect with each other,' her holier-than-thou, retardo-fascist decrees certaily fly in the face of that. Statements such as 'all guests must be approved,' and that society fringe-dwellers like 'freelancers' (gasp! such a lowly crowd) need not apply—and that only 'community building,' not networking, will be allowed —frankly, make me want to barf. Community build this, Laurel Touby.

Apologies for hate-mongering, but am I the only one who feels this way?

Signed,

'A full time edit staffer' AND a freelancer/leper"
Media Bistro
Profile: Laurel Touby [Silicon Salley]