From this original thread: What one band is the epitome of classic rock for you
You even posted first in that thread with what your definition is:
I get trying to keep threads on track but there needs to be room for organic discussion to arise. This was one such and it seemed to have run its course before you intervened. And the discussion was on topic even if using a specific example…what is “classic rock?” I think that is relevant to the thread.
You don’t think 11 posts on Fleetwood Mac constitutes a hijack?
It was a pretty legit flag.
Your title misrepresents what actually happened.
You realize you weren’t warned right? This is a very weird complaint.
I agree with @What_Exit ; it had morphed into a specific debate about a specific band – and not even much of a debate. It was almost entirely a back-and-forth “yes they are!”/“no they aren’t!” between you and @MrDibble.
I realize no one was warned but you changed the character of an ongoing thread that I think modifies the original in an unfair way. You are putting your finger on the scale.
I do not think it is in need of modding unless you want this to be an Oxford-Style Debate message board.
A specific debate about what “classic rock” is which is the point. It is an example.
No, no one needs 11 straight posts about Fleetwood Mac hijacking that thread. It was no longer about what is Classic Rock but just a back and forth.
Once it became more than a couple of posts, it was more than an example, it was a hijack, IMO.
Ok. It is far from the first time such back and forth has happened on this board (without moderation) and I doubt it will be the last. I hope you are as zealous about this in the future to all posters.
Perhaps…but it had ended before moderation.
Your first sentence is correct.
As to the second, it will not happen, I had stopped following the thread and if not for the flag I would not have been aware of the hijack. Not all will be caught. Not by a long shot.
It was literally the 11 last posts in that thread, the most recent being under 4 hours ago. No indication the hijack had stopped.
Look at the time stamps between each of those posts. Four hours is no indication it had stopped?
I just posted 4 hours. What kind of selective quoting is this?
What is selective?
No, I don’t.
Why wasn’t the discussion about the Beatles a hijack? Or any of the other bands that had more than one post about them.
It was a CS discussion thread, not an IMHO listicle. Bad call.
We were not the only participants - 4 posters in 11 posts is not a lot.
Yep. I’d specifically said I wan’t responding to W-a-M on the topic any more. So where’s the ongoing hijack?
That was neither myself nor @Whack-a-Mole .
So which is it? Just a back-and-forth between two posters, or a broader discussion about the topic of the thread using one specific example?
@What_Exit mentioned the Beatles in the first response to the thread. They are mentioned in 20 posts in that thread. I think all of those should be made into a new thread of their own.
Just to be fair.
I honestly don’t know. A discussion about whether a particular band is a good example of “classic rock” seems entirely on-topic to me. How many posts about one particular band does it take before it constitutes a clear hijack?
And that’s a very weird response. I’ve stated in the past that I don’t like the ‘you weren’t warned’ thing. Not just from mods, other posters will chime in with the same thing. I find it odd that people seem to think you have to be punished in order to be upset about something. That you can’t have a problem with a rule or mod note unless it escalates.
To me, this is exactly the time to make a complaint. No warnings have been issued, no one’s in trouble, no one is trying to rules lawyer themselves out of a corner etc. This always seemed like a good time for mods and posters to recognize they’re on different pages and try to work something out before things get out of hand. Instead, TPTB seem to want us to wait until warnings are issued, people are mad, ATMB threads get started in anger and eventually get locked.
Also, unrelated to this specific discussion, but I think it would be helpful if, when you do split off hijacks, you make yourself the OP. Even if it’s just a link back to the old thread. It’s only happened to me once, but I wasn’t a fan of finding myself the OP of a thread I didn’t start with a title I didn’t write. I know you add a post, but that’s often pretty far down.
For me, the problem with moving “hijack” posts to separate threads is that they lose the context in which they were spawned. In this particular case, multiple posters were discussing what made a group “classic rock” to them. All that has been torn loose.
The vast majority of long threads veer from the OP at some point. I often want to scream “Get back to the OP” but I don’t because internet conversations are stochastic, to use today’s buzzword. If the majority of posters to a thread want to go off on a related tangent, then so be it. Either that becomes the thread or the tangent will end. Very few threads are killed or even damaged by most hijacks, certainly far fewer than are modded recently.
I’m not sure where I fall on this issue, except that peeling off a sub-topic shouldn’t necessarily be considered punitive. Mods might want to consider using the term “Tangent” or “Offshoot” in cases where they think an on-topic discussion might be better forked somewhere else.