There is a fine art to derailing threads and since I do more lurking than posting, I thought I would expound upon my thoughts on this topic as I’ve played witness to many derailings and perhaps derailed a few myself. So let’s first consider the types of derailings.
Hijack - This is by far the most common, someone reads the OP or reads the thread and follows a tangential thought (or completely unrelated thought) and posts it in the thread, thus causing a change in direction for the discussions.
Snark - This is the one where someone comes in and makes a snarky post to someone or about something relating to the thread. The focus then turns on the snark as either the two involved parties duel it out in words or perhaps spend seven posts trying to apologize for misunderstandings and return the status quo, where usually the thread had been firmly derailed and the topic suffers a hemorrhage of interest, dying soon after.
Minutia - This one is a most deceiving of derails, most don’t even realize it is a derailing. The common example is where a thread is opened about the latest episode of some hit tv show and about 20 posts in usually someone opens up a debate about some minor point in the show. Was that guy in the background staring at the hot chicks butt? What hot guy? Who’s butt? I don’t think so. I do. And suddenly the thread about the episode as a whole is focused exclusively on some tiny point of interest.
Humor - Usually a fun derailing but somewhere along the line someone decides to be funny, perhaps entering a “Hi Opal” or making some pun which spurs thirty copy cats or riff-ers who are spinning off the original idea and either adding to the “hilarity” or just trying to be seen as clever and witty.
Phase shift - This one is hard to explain but it happens. When reading a thread you suddenly think you missed a post or skipped a page, because you were just reading about A and suddenly you’re discussing the best soup recipes with no shift. You don’t know how it happened but without warning or pretense the topic and focus changed and no one saw fit to tell you about it. Just hang on for the ride.
Miscellaneous - There are of course other derailings which occur, and for now I just file them under miscellaneous.
The inspiration for this thread came about because I was reading a thread in CS about the origin of ball/bat sports and what was the most recent and it got derailed as people harped on a guy who posted Frisbee golf for posting a non ball/bat sport. And I was going to further disrupt the thread by posting the irony I found in the discussion such that the true harm was done by those ranting about the frisbee golf, not the guy who posted it.
For me, unless I’m in a thread or forum where rants and debates are announced and known to be planned, I tend to close out threads which devolve into debates or rants or snark. I just don’t have the time to scroll through it and find the return to normal conversation (if there is one.)
In any case, that’s my gift to MPSIMS today. Peace kidz.
– IG
