Changes to Hijacking Rules in the Politics and Elections Forum

About This Message Board
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The P&E moderator staff are announcing a change to our rules with respect to hijacking.

First, some background:

The more stringent current hijacking rules came into existence in 2020, largely authored by Jonathan Chance. Unfortunately, Jonathan died shortly after implementing these rules, and we didn’t really get to see his intended moderation for them. We’ve done the best we can with the rules as we understand them.

Still, we’re fielding an increasing number of complaints in ATMB about our moderation of thread hijacks. It’s an inexact process, obviously. But the complaints are wearing and take up a lot of time. If we can do something to ameliorate them, we think it would make a good change. So we’ve been discussing various ideas and ways to loosen the hijacking rules for posters who strenuously object to them, without forcing the majority of posters who prefer current hijack moderation to endure them. Hopefully this proposed change will make posting more comfortable for everyone.

None of us disagree with the hijacking rules as they are currently written and believe they serve an important purpose. But we recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach is difficult for some.

Here is a brief outline of the new rules:

  • We’re going to allow posters to designate their thread as “Hijacks Tolerated” (HT) if they wish. For posters choosing to start “Hijacks Tolerated” (HT) threads, they must be clearly noted as such in both the title and the OP. No exceptions.

  • This change will pertain only to P&E, and no other forum.

  • Once a thread has started, we will not allow it to be recharacterized. If it starts as an HT thread, it stays an HT thread, and vice versa.

  • We will continue to not permit omnibus threads, so if a hijack strays for too long away from the original topic, the thread will be closed. We understand this goes against the way things are currently done, but we don’t know another way to address threads that just go on and on with no purpose.

  • Threads will either be moderated as usual or they will be fully unmoderated for hijacks, with no in-betweens. We will dismiss flags thrown for hijacks in HT threads, with a reminder to check thread titles for the HT designation.

  • HT threads will still be moderated for other transgressions, as per the existing P&E rules. As a specific example our rules remain unchanged on Threadshitting and these will be moderated at our discretion. We are aware that there can be overlaps with certain types of hijacks, so be extra mindful of the gap between honest disagreement with the OP and posting to disparage the topic or poster. Be aware that we never encourage posters to deliberately take threads off topic, whether HT-designated or otherwise.

  • There may be simultaneous threads on the same topic, one HT and one non-HT, and those are ok. You may post in one or the other or both, as you choose.

  • We will not move posts between HT and non-HT threads once they are posted. Posters need to make sure they are posting in the thread of their preference.

We may or may not adopt this approach on a permanent basis. For now, we just want to see how it goes. We offer this option to let posters speak freely in P&E without concerns about going off topic if they choose and hope to create a more welcoming environment for all.

We’re starting this in ATMB to allow posters to ask questions and comment. We want this to be a success, so your constructive criticisms are welcome.

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If a thread is designated “Hijacks Tolerated” we’ll also add he tag hijacks-tolerated.

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It should be hijacks tolerated, (probably never used, nobody likes their thread to be hijacked) Digression tolerated (what most people are asking for) and no digression (the current implementation of the rules)

Sayong Hijacks tolerated is a much stronger phrasing than what people actually want.

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I think you’re right, but “hijacks” is the term everyone is familiar with, so we’ll stick with that.

However, if we perceive someone is hijacking an HT-designated thread solely for giggles or to see how much they can get away with, we’ll moderate that. It’s trollish behavior, and it won’t be tolerated in P&E under any circumstances.

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I think that this is a great idea and let’s see how it goes. If it needs to be tweaked in a few weeks, so be it.

I really appreciated you guys. I know a lot of thought went into it.

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We’ll add this to the New Rules for Politics and Elections – January 2020 thread for P&E if we keep it.

BTW: Incidental, @Aspenglow besides doing all the heavy lifting for this new rule made a good suggestion. I’m going through and adding a new tag: sdmb_rules-and-notes
This will make it easier to find rules and threads about adding tags or using images.

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Well, thank you.

Yes, a lot of thought did go into it. We know we can’t make everyone happy, but we’re trying to make as many happy as we can.

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This seems a terrible idea to me.

I think the SDMB thrives on a bit of free-wheeling debate/chit-chat which may meander.

Trying to draw brightlines on what is or is not too much of a hijack seems just as much of a Mod nightmare to cope with compared to how it is now.

I think it would be simpler to just spot someone straying way to far from the topic and steer them back than to do this. Again, not sure this is an improvement.

Will people really start a thread saying hijacks are allowed?

This is tough on new visitors who are unaware of this nuance which will keep people away (and the SDMB needs new blood).

I certainly have done some big hijacks in my time here. I am not defending doing that. I would say there are occasions where someone might mention something as being an aside and, if enough interest, spinning off a new thread.

tl;dr I don’t think this will ease moderator workload. I think it is more likely to increase it. At the least, the judgement call needing a referee will still be there, same as always. This just makes it more complex.

IMHO…my $0.02

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I have no strong preference as far as allowing hijacks, but it seems to me that the person starting the thread may have no clue how they’ll feel about a hijack until the thread has had a chance to get well underway - maybe the topic got settled to their satisfaction, but it’s too late to change it.

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There are some. This relaxation of rules is for them. If you mostly like how things are done now, simply avoid starting an HT-designated thread.

Same answer. Just stick to starting threads without the HT designation, and you’ll see no change in moderation. People are still free to quibble about whether we’re moderating too much or too little in regular P&E threads.

The whole place is tough on new visitors, full stop. They’ll figure it out, or we’ll help them. This is not a huge change except at your own election.

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Shouldn’t it also apply to Great Debates, from which P&E was a spinoff?

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Again, this is about putting some of the power and discretion back into the hands of the OP, rather than the moderators. Hopefully, it’ll also encourage more specific and detailed OP’s for those who continue to prefer the more “traditional” option, thus the line above:

So we’ve been discussing various ideas and ways to loosen the hijacking rules for posters who strenuously object to them, without forcing the majority of posters who prefer current hijack moderation to endure them. Hopefully this proposed change will make posting more comfortable for everyone.

And of course, this is an option to try to address a concern. No one is sure it’s going to work, but it’s (IMHO) a better option than some of the ATMB suggestions about “mild / moderate hijacks allowed” which would be a nightmare, because one person’s mild or moderate is extreme to another.

Again, this gives OP’s going forward a choice if they want a more freewheeling discussion, or if they want to keep it more strict. And note one of the provisios:

We are asking a lot of you the posters, the same way you guys ask a lot of us. We do trust you guys not to be a jerk most of the time!

In general GD tends to invite discussion that’s less anchored in immediate, real world consequences. Not always by any means. The OPs are much more rare, and the discussion is normally much more narrow by nature. P&E is very much a real-world immediate issue at times, and people are always drawing for similar or dissimilar examples, and unexpected events that might be pertinent or not depending on how the situation evolves.

I’m sure if we see this being successful and there becomes an apparent need, we could consider it. But one of the concerns we workshopped on this was that maybe P&E’s rules were too strict because it evolved from the tighter expectations of GD, rather than taking into account ‘real life’ murkiness.

Again, we tried to eliminate some of the bright lines in earlier drafts (only X number of off-topic/hijack posts allowed and many others), but we’re sure we’ll find some problems as it goes live. And if it ends up being too much work (as mentioned upthread) then we’ll modify it, or close the option.

Really, we’ve been working on this for months around our schedules and gave the rest of the modloop a chance to chime in, but we feel it’s better to try to address the problem, and possibly fail, than ignore the problem.

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I know that mods have been working hard to keep threads on track in GD and P&E, and I appreciate that they’re putting in extra effort now to improve the situation. I hope it works, and it’s certainly a noble effort to put some control over hijack tolerance on the OP of a thread. But I have some concerns.

One concern is that thread starters may be reluctant to designate threads as “HT” because they would typically be starting a thread for an intended purpose, and that reluctance would be exacerbated by the rule stated in the OP that “Threads will either be moderated as usual or they will be fully unmoderated for hijacks, with no in-betweens.” Designating a thread “HT” would mean the OP is effectively sayinng, “eh, talk about whatever you want – I wasn’t really serious about wanting to discuss this.”

This seems to me to be the opposite of what is actually needed, which is not an “either-or” or “black and white extreme”, but rather, a more lenient attitude to so-called “hijacks”, where currently even a mention of some related matter that is not absolutely 100% on topic will draw a mod note to lay off. Which not only makes a lot of extra work for the moderators but, perversely, discourages posters who might have some interesting information to add, so that instead they avoid posting altogether. It creates a lot of grief all around.

A specific example of what I’d consider well-intentioned over-enforcement of Colibri’s original rules about hijacks that resulted in overly strict moderation is the fact that we now have no less than four P&E threads on the war in Iran, and two of them are so similar that for the life of me I cannot even tell the difference. Could we not have just as productive a discussion with one thread specifically devoted to breaking news events about the war, and just one other thread for everything else related to the war?

I would propose flipping the suggested thread labeling around. Clearly there are some posters who prefer threads to be strictly moderated, and then there are those of us who prefer a looser approach. No one has suggested a free-for-all thread where anyone can post about anything they want, and that’s what “HT” seems to imply. I propose, instead, that we have a “NH” – “No Hijacks” designation for those OPs who want that strict moderation. Absence of “NH” means threads will be moderated with more lenience, allowing some off-topic drift, but will definitely still be moderated.

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Maybe I wasn’t clear. I meant: I start a thread thinking I don’t want a lot of hijacks, so I don’t tag it. Then it gets answered to my complete satisfaction and I’m fine with hijacks at that point. Too late.

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Kind of how in Factual Questions, once the question is answered, the strictness is loosened.

Give this a few weeks and we might make that allowance. But one step at a time.

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We acknowledge this, and that’s why we explicitly mention and approve if we have competing HT and Non-HT threads on a subject at the same time.

Those were @Jonathan_Chance rules if you’re talking about the 2020 revision, just to be clear. The splits were more about the “No Omnibus Thread” rules that we don’t yet have a good workaround for. And yet this has always been an issue, where often we’ll have a Breaking news thread, a P&E thread, a Pit thread, etc.

Again, this is still asking posters to be considerate to each other.

The problem with the “NH” option mentioned is that as countless ATMB threads show, everyone is drawing the line differently. That is apparently not working. Keeping threads as “normal” is already low-to-no hijacking permitted in the existing P&E rules.

My specific concern with this is the parallel to the “Don’t move threads to the Pit concern” - you may be fine with it, but posters who wanted to keep the thread to reference. But like @What_Exit, once we have an idea of how the step works (if at all), then we can modify the balance later. This is much like a Beta build right now!

ETA - in short, I think a lot of people are (correctly?) looking for a perfect answer, but for a community, that’s going have a lot of different answers. Right now, and fully IMHO, “Perfect is the Enemy of the Good”.

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Yes, my apologies, I got two former moderators mixed up. I was referring to the rules set out by @Jonathan_Chance.

But just to add, while no one has much of an issue with most of those new rules, the strict ones against hijacking have clearly been the cause of a lot of grief and controversy. The thread here in ATMB about “Why do so many posters have trouble staying on topic?” reminds me of the old adage about laws: if everybody and his dog constantly breaks some law, maybe it’s a bad law.

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Which is why this first “Beta” change is being made.
Let us do this systematically. We’ll try to get to a better place.

The hijack rule is not easy on the Moderators either. Most of our grief and pushback is on this one rule. But P&E and GD used to be hijacked far too much which is what Jonathan_Chance was trying to fix. Some posters, mostly banned now, used hijacks maliciously. Amazing how many threads were completely wrecked by Gun Control hijacks or the like.

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I think this is a great idea. The nature of politics is that absolutely everything is connected to everything else. Making the relaxed moderation opt-in is a great way to start.