# Hijack Policy 2024: A new hope **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 16, 2024, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-policy-2024-a-new-hope/1004303 "2024-07-16T04:42:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 45
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-policy-2024-a-new-hope/1004303/45 "2024-08-08T01:33:25Z")
I personally don’t moderate the forums where hijacks are more tightly controlled and don’t frequent those forums either. However, I would like to point out that it wasn’t the current moderators who changed the enforcement of hijacks and tightened up those forums in general. That was **Jonathan Chance** , and those changes were done for good reason. These are Jonathan’s words on the subject (they were posted in the OP here but I think they are worth repeating): > [@New Rules for Great Debates and Elections – January 2020](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-rules-for-great-debates-and-elections-january-2020/845726/1): > > **Hijacks.** This is, perhaps, the single largest and most important change to the rules in Great Debates and Politics and Elections made in 2020. Staying on topic is a strong goal of Great Debates and Politics and Elections moving forward. Threads exist for a reason. Presumably, the original poster wants to discuss a specific topic. Posts which pull the thread away from that topic are hijacks. Some of these are inadvertent, some are not. Posts that seem intended to steer a discussion away from the original topic may be sanctioned. Hijacks may be, but are not limited to, posts that lead away from a topic, endless questioning, repeatedly asking the same or similar questions once they’ve been answered, and other maneuvers. Whether or not such is occurring is at the sole discretion of the moderation staff and may lead to official sanction. Personally, since I don’t frequent those forums, what happens there doesn’t matter much to me. But I do feel that I should point out that those who want less strict moderation are basically saying they want to go back to the prior situation where everyone complained that hijacks were ruining the forums and making it impossible for threads to stay on-topic. Like I said, those rules were changed for good reasons. A lot of folks in this thread seem to be forgetting those reasons. Jonathan considered it to be very important to those forums that the rules be enforced strictly, as they are being enforced now. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijack-policy-2024-a-new-hope/1004303)._