I’m a little uncomfortable with the toughened up hijack policy, but I have a growing sense that there really is no great solution. Still I ask, why are we curbing hijacks again?1 I wasn’t here when the policy was started years ago.
I have a guess. For whatever reason, I find Discourse threads more difficult to skim than I did with vBulletin. So we’re often faced with 200+ posts of middling content, which need to be looked over before commenting. So trimming out excess content or sending it elsewhere makes some sense.
I don’t like the idea of posters being warned or banned for hijacking, and have been uneasy with some of the jackbootery. I also don’t have a strong sense of where the lines are, including the best practice lines. Yes, I get that rules are meaningless without enforcement.
I hope that we can discuss best practices for replying to or creating new threads. It doesn’t have to all be about rules.
Plaudits for moderators:
I’ve seen some mod notes/warnings that include instructions for creating a new thread that links to an existing post. Well done.
I’ve seen mods break apart threads and create new thread topics on their own. Also good. If you’re going to start regulating an organic conversation, you may as well dive in and lay down some taxonomies. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Rules:
This seems relevant if also mysterious to my eyes:
Comment in other thread:
Specific hijack thread:
Tips for Using Discourse to avoid hijacks:
Locked Heavy Handed Heinous Hijack Hijinks Thread
1I asked this question years ago and received a solid answer from What Exit that I can neither locate nor remember. Apologies.
I think it makes some sense for GD and PE, but don’t get it when applied to normal conversation threads, because hijacks are a normal part of conversation. I think the old line was best for other forums.
I do agree with the hate of seeing Warnings for it. Because, again, it is natural. I much prefer gentle steering.
Yes, but real-life conversations have participants who feel they have to jump in and hog/hijack the conversation with their own personal blatherings which have little to do with the actual topic. I’m very grateful that here, somebody steps in and stops them.
Warnings should be reserved for more flagrant violations of the board rules. Kick those Jack-Boots, and relax a little, Mods. Fill that Often-Talked-About-Yet-Never-Seen Coffee mug up with whatever makes you feel good and chill.
Let’s not Harsh the Mellow Vibe we got going here.
Nobody gets Warned for just a single hijack. Either they don’t listen to the mods in that one thread and continue, or they have a habit of starting hijacks over and over again.
I like the hijack rules (even if I’ve broken them on occasion)
I didn’t like the rule when it was proposed. Back when we had threading in vBulletin I didn’t think it served a purpose, since you could turn on threaded mode and hijacks were no longer a problem.
We don’t have threaded mode any more, which is unfortunate, so I guess it is a little helpful now. But I still think it’s not worthwhile.
My preferred interpretation of the rule is and has been, OP must present a focused question for debate, on-topic posts should relate to main arguments addressing the question and direct counterarguments. If a side conversation is likely to or has shifted the discussion away from main arguments addressing the OP, it’s a hijack.
This obviously doesn’t always work for P&E. For example there are breaking news threads in P&E and there are threads covering the whole of a major investigation or the whole of a candidate’s campaign for office. I mean, there’s a single thread for the entire term of each British prime minister. Could you imagine if we had a single thread for the entire Trump administration? We had one thread for the entire Boris Johnson administration. I often struggle to understand what is or isn’t on-topic in P&E.
As for how I follow the hijack rule in practice, I keep in mind an early precedent:
Here’s my problem.
I’ve seen the rule weaponized. Poster A will drop a steaming ‘turd’ into the thread ‘punchbowl’ and when asked to defend their post reply with something along the lines of “I’d love to defend my shitting the bed thread, but to do so would clearly be a violation of the hijacking rule so my bullshit post will just have to stand ever so slightly attacked and without the need for me to defend it!”
I’ve got no problem with the mods enforcing the rule but once a poster has shown a pattern of dropping landmines into threads it’s not the posters responding that need the mod’s attention.
And in Factual Questions , how strictly it’s enforced depends on the degree to which the factual question has been answered, and on whether the hijack is itself factual.
I raised this objection immediately after the rule was announced. With me being concerned I’d appear to make controversial arguments in bad faith if I don’t defend them at length in-thread. I think the answer was don’t worry about it.
ETA: The distinction being that so long as I stay on-topic myself it shouldn’t be a problem. Again, this doesn’t help very much in P&E or omnibus threads where the topic is broad enough that something within the subject can be considered a hijack. In practice I’ve sometimes created a spin-off thread to defend my position without distracting from the parent topic.
Whereupon you can click on the Reply button, then on the grey arrow at top left of the reply box, and then on “+ Reply as Linked Topic”, and open a new Pit thread to reply to them in.
Click the Gear button on the toolbar
Click Insert Template
Click the Clipboard button after Reply as linked Topic (and it inserts instructions I wrote up)
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
The Interface changing or checking & the Steps to Mute a Tag, Category (Forum) or User should also be of use/interest.
I’m curious: Are warnings like points on your driver’s license? Drunk Driving is a 6 point offense, Basic Speed is a 1 point. Surely a warning for “Off Topic” shouldn’t count as much as a N-bomb or Hate Speech. Am I right to assume this?
Let’s say my good Friend Becky racks up three or four for Hijacking. Is she in danger of getting canned, or maybe a suspension to reconsider her (wildly entertaining) posting style?
It would be Tragic in My Opinion to ban someone for harmless participation.
I have further thoughts to share, but I’d like to state that I’m happy with this thread so far. Questions asked. Questions answered. Opinions provided. And best of all, no meltdowns. Keep it up, remembering that we’re all friends here.
I don’t think there’s a perfect, near-perfect, or even satisfying solution to the hijack problem. I think there are a lot of different satisfactory solutions, ones that are good enough. So posters will have many reasonable but conflicting preferences. I hope we can keep this chill.
There are no “points”. We decide each on a case by case basis, and it depends not only on how many warnings there are total, but what they’re for, how frequent they are (including how frequent recently), how the person responds to them, and whether there’s a pattern. By the time it gets to the point of discussing a ban, we also take into account what positive contributions someone makes to the board: We’re more tolerant of someone who sometimes makes an ass of themself but usually contributes good, useful posts than we are of someone who never does anything but making an ass of themself.
It’s true you make no positive contributions but hey your mostly harmless at least.
I keed.
More seriously, we’re not trying to build a file to suspend Beck, we are trying to get her to understand she has to understand where she is posting and some forums are treated far more seriously then others.
And this Doper enjoys her very much. You’re not all bad yourself.
I think our current mods have both the art and the science of modding down very well. If anything, I think they sometimes bend over too far backwards to be tolerant.