And when it comes to official polling efforts are made to take that into consideration, something that would be next to impossible to do here.
I don’t, but I assumed I was in the minority. I can live with whatever people want. Hijacks don’t bother me in the least.
I think the “no hijack” rule serves a very real purpose. There have been times in the past where threads about persecution/abuse/discrimination of women were deliberately hijacked by males trying to change the subject to how males were the real ones suffering. Those hijacks did very real damage to this message board.
I am of the opinion that the title of the thread, coupled with the OP, should strongly guide the direction of the thread. I see this as a strength, not a fault.
When I see there are suddenly 25 new posts in the FBI search thread, my first thought is there must be breaking news about Trump’s upcoming trial and I eagerly jump in. It’s a little disappointing to see that all the new posts are just people goofing on something stupid he said.
That said, I’ve been one of the goofers on occasion, and didn’t mind being modnoted.
I disagree that it was a hijack at all.
"What Trump meant by saying he is a “legitimate person” may be a matter for discussion. But not in this thread. "
This is just plain wrong. Trump said those words In response to the charges. Discussing them is totally appropriate for the thread. The discussion that followed was totally on-topic and within the traditions of the SDMB.
It’s the jokes that you are objecting to, not the subject. You wouldn’t have moderated a serious post on the subject.
"Presumably, the original poster wants to discuss a specific topic. "
This is the Straight Dope. Sometimes discussing a topic includes making jokes on a topic. This has always been a big part of discussion here. It is the high quality of jokes here that makes this place such fun to post in.
Jokes are not a hijack, as long as they directly on topic.
The only rule is that responses to FQs must wait for a proper answer before joke answers are permitted.
"Posts which pull the thread away from that topic are hijacks. "
Exactly. A hijack occurs when people start discussing a topic different to the topic of the thread. The thread is specifically about Trump’s holding classified documents. A hijack would be if people start discussing the Georgia phone call, or the E. Jean Carroll libel cases.
That did not occur here.
Hijacks are bad because they disrupt a thread, they get in the way of serious discussion. People trying to discuss a particular topic are frustrated by people discussing an entirely different topic. Did that happen here? Was anyone stopped from discussing Trump’s legal problems because people were telling jokes? Did you get any actual complaints?
"You want a rules change, take that up. "
No, I want a regime change. Nothing wrong with the rules, you are misapplying them.
I think heavy-handed hijack moderation is fine on the SDMB because of the type of community it has. People here typically like to talk about minutia and dive deeply into topics. Threads are very likely to get hijacked, and the resulting hijacks will often be discussed passionately. For most threads that’s part of the fun, but it can make breaking-news threads worthless. All the back-and-forth that come from the hijacks overwhelm any discussion about news updates. Quite often I’ll just page down and skip over the hijack to where the thread (hopefully) gets back on track.
Some of the modding has just been puzzling. The thread on the Titan disaster was closed and locked as soon as mods determined the breaking news aspect of it was over, even though people were still discussing the accident in the thread. Then a couple days later, more news comes out, and there’s no place to put it because the thread was locked. I don’t think the mods should decide when we’ve done enough discussing, regardless of whether it’s a “breaking news” thread.
That was closed in large part because the thread had been a moderation nightmare. There was a great deal of tension between those who enjoy gallows humor and those who believe in being respectful to the dead. (Read "we got an awful lot of reports.) And the “gallows humor” tended to veer into jokes about “eat the rich”, which is getting political.
When we closed it, we thought the topic had run its course, and that closing it was, frankly, less “heavy handed” than moderating lots of posters. But it turned out the news was still developing. So… new thread. Mea culpa.
I’ll need to check the thread again, but the last I read there were no warnings issued even after posters immediately following the note violated the note. Hardly hot headed. More like generously lenient and forgiving.
By the way, the different forums have intentionally different standards re “hijacks”. I rarely moderate hijacks in MPSIMS (outside breaking news threads, which are kinda a subforum of their own) unless those hijacks are getting heated or pissing off posters or really threaten to overwhelm a still-active discussion. That’s partly because MPSIMS doesn’t generally GET heated. So a few joke posts, or a string of bad puns is generally fine. It’s in keeping with the goals and style of MPSIMS.
People get heated about P&E all the time, and a lot of topics would routinely devolve into the same meta-argument if the moderation were less. That could be fine, but it would be a different forum than what we have, which is a place where posters can argue narrow points on-topic if they so choose.
Posts that immediately follow a note were often composed contemporaneously with the note, and rarely draw warnings. We expect you to check a thread for moderation, but not check every 30 seconds.
In general, hijacks rarely draw more than a mod note, unless the same poster persists after moderation, or they are very egregious.
Yeah, I know. I was arguing against the idea that the moderation was heavy handed. (?)
I’ll just weigh in to say that the moderations seemed very reasonable to me.
This is my position on the matter exactly. A funny comment here or there is lighthearted fun. When someone takes that and dials it up to 11 for dozens of posts it’s a hijack.
Compromise offer: make your joke, then add something new to the real discussion in the same post. Best of both worlds.
I wasn’t really complaining about a bunch of funny comments being a hijack. More like, I was complaining that a bunch of funny comments can trick me into thinking something major has happened that will finally doom Trump to the pits of hell. 
“These two-hour windows are unfair to those of us on different schedules than the mods. I propose a mandatory 48-hour cooling down period before any moderator instructions take effect.”
I’m just curious if it’s the humor that’s the problem. While my post was tongue-in-cheek, I was making what I thought was a legitimate point about how defensive he was being about things, and how it shows how guilty he feels. And yes, it was 100% relevant to the topic at hand.
So I’m wondering, are comments disallowed in P&E if they are trying to make a point in an oblique and humorous way? Because that’s the culture of this board, and the original Straight Dope column it inspired.
I’m wondering if the entire P&E forum, as it is set up, is perhaps not appropriate for the SDMB. I know I’ve been very careful about how I post in P&E since receiving a warning for participating in (not starting) a hijack, to the point of walking on eggshells.
I’m not criticizing the mods, I think they’re doing their jobs. I’m criticizing the category.
There have been 308 distinct posters in that thread, so 14 isn’t exactly a large chunk of the participants. I was getting a little frustrated refreshing the thread for news and just seeing more jokes. There was certainly a legitimate conversation to be had about Trump’s statement, but it wasn’t happening.
I’d be on your side if the response to the jokes was to hand out warnings, but a gentle reminder to get things back on track seems fine.
Same. A couple jokes are fine. A repetitive riff that adds dozens of posts in short order to a thread that’s supposed to be devoted to a major evolving news story is annoying. I broadly agree with the moderator action here.
Thanks to all who have offered opinions in this thread.
Some final thoughts and comments in view of statements made:
First, I like almost everyone on this board and particularly many who post in GD/P&E. It’s not fun to have to moderate people whom you enjoy. I don’t relish doing it at all. I don’t look for reasons to do it.
I did not ask to be a moderator on this board. I was recruited. However, having accepted the offer to do the work, I feel a responsibility to carry it out as well as I can.
I was not a moderator when the current GD/P&E 2020 rules were crafted and had no part in their issuance whatsoever. When I became a mod, I reviewed them carefully and I try hard to stay within their boundaries as written. I don’t know how much effort, time and/or attention were given to the rules revisions, but based on their completeness, I would say at least some. If the rules change again for whatever reason, I will do my best to enforce them as they are revised – as I am doing now.
I don’t like squelching funny hijacks. I have a sense of humor, too. One of the things I miss most about being a regular poster is not being able to share it more in GD/P&E threads – because I don’t want to become part of violating the rules moderators are tasked with enforcing. The issue is never the humor. The issue is whether the funny hijack has much to do with the topic at hand.
In this case, sure, the fact that Trump had made a comment in response to his legal troubles was tangentially on topic. But the more the jokey posts continued, the further away they got from the actual topic at hand.
Moderating hijacks is tricky. They almost never start out deliberately. But what’s the right number of hijacking posts? Two? Five? Fifteen? I don’t know. Hijacks in P&E tend to evolve organically, arising out of a reaction to a bit of news that could sort of be interpreted as being on topic. And then with every succeeding post, the hijack becomes its own animal that strays far from the thread topic. This was such a one. Once the fun starts, it’s hard for others to resist joining in, with no regard for the actual topic.
None of the mods live here on the forum. Sometimes our real lives demand time and attention. For days, even! We can’t always moderate hijacks as soon as we might have wished we had.
As was noted, this was a mod note, intended only to get everyone back on track. If I were a power-mad, angry mod, I’d have issued warnings to everyone. Not my style. That said, it does get tiresome having to do this again and again and again.
Lastly, as @puzzlegal mentioned, P&E/GD are the 2 forums that are tightly moderated for hijacks. We’ve got numerous other forums where we aren’t held to these strict standards. You’ll almost never see me moderate hijacks in my other assigned forums (IMHO, MPSIMS or QZ). The standards are much different in those forums. So head on over to one of your choice and go crazy! Link back to the P&E thread, even.
Lesson learned: I have over the past couple of months moderated hijacks more lightly in the hope that posters would self-police and get back on track without intervention. The hijacking got worse. I’ll be moderating hijacks in GD/P&E more strictly going forward. I’m not speaking for what co-mods will do.
Please respect the rules as they are currently written for GD/P&E or work to change them. I don’t care which way it goes. This mod is just trying to do the best she can within the constraints of the rules as I understand them. I do make mistakes and have always tried hard to admit to them and correct my actions when I do. This is not one of those times.