I love them too. I love the unpredictability of the Pit.
I use it (and mostly in the Pit) when the discussion more organically moves off to the side, while a lot of hijacks are verging on the deliberate (or are in forums that are explicitly hijack intolerant).
It’s not a formal term. 
Being aware of a tendency is a good first step, being consistent in keeping it in check is important (NOT a criticism for @DrDeth specifically, but a reminder to all).
You’re not wrong, but most Pit threads are pretty general, and the wide amount of leeway is a feature, not a bug. The specific thread in question is, as has been mentioned, is rather structured by comparison and intent. Which is why several posters in that thread (and this one) value it and treat it a bit differently than most.
Plus, sometimes the discussions really merit a wider audience! A lot of posters avoid the Pit for a variety of reasons, but might want to contribute on the semi-frequent side-jacks that are more-or-less Pit-content free.
Is What Exit? being accused of bias for moving the discussion of the link between whiteness and capitalism out of “What were you THINKING?” into its own thread?
Because whether or not you think spinning the topic off into its own thread or not was a good idea, I’m not sure how doing so demonstrates bias. I’d be interested to hear the reasoning behind that proposition from anyone who thinks bias was involved in the spin-off.
It also seemed perfectly appropriate to move the discussion into its own thread. The “What were you THINKING?” thread is a place to remark upon posting behavior of generally okay posters that invites criticism. The link between whiteness and capitalism is potentially an interesting topic, but it’s completely different.
I don’t see any bias, but I assume those who do feel that What Exit?’s bias is antagonistic to the view that whiteness and capitalism are linked. Yet, I think the move has given a more visible platform for those who wish to argue that they are indeed linked. How is that bad?
Speaking of titles, Shakespeare came up with a good one that is very appropriate here: “Much Ado About Nothing”. 
Am I gonna get my shorts in a knot over @What_Exit doing minor useful things outside the scope of his assigned forums? No, I am not. And I don’t see how “bias” has anything to do with it.
I wouldn’t argue that What Exit? was biased in that move, however I would point out that the thread hijack that was spun into a new thread immediately became hijacked by an argument about Amazon labor statistics. Are we going to spin that one out too? Where does it end?
As I said, there are only 2 threads in the Pit I’ve done that to. So the answer is in ends in the What were they thinking & Trolls R Us Resurrections threads.
I don’t think there are any other threads like that pair in the pit. Hopefully that clarifies it for you? I really don’t moderate or even Jr. Mod in the other hundreds or thousands of Pit threads except for the rare housekeeping stuff.
ETA: I played with the reporting system, about 1100 new Pit threads have been created since I became a Moderator.
Re: Bias, I was told by Ed Zotti, when I took my post, that for a moderator to post in the Pit wasn’t against the rules, strictly speaking, but that it was more likely to result in accusations of bias and stir up general discontent on the board, therefore was ill-advised. I was surprised how hard and fast that guidance has been flouted but by this point I’m used to it.
Still, it’s hard not to see this OP as evidence that he was right.
It’s a bit of a nuisance to move a conversation, as you have to pick the appropriate posts to move. I have asked Miller if he’s be okay with my moving a long sub-discussion in the pit into it’s own thread a few times, and he’s always said, “yes”.
Mods are expected to stick to their own forums except:
- Deleting spam
- Correcting typos at a posters request
- Really obvious things, especially if they are time-sensitive (e.g., “please spoiler this thing in today’s wordle thread”)
- Temporarily closing a thread that appears to be easy off track until an appropriate mod has a chance to look at it.
I am generally a fan of moving a long, internally coherent discussion that’s formed in the middle of a thread about something else into its own thread. I feel this makes both the original discussion and the offspring conversation easier to follow. And this happens more often in IMHO than in most other forums. When it is in a forum i don’t moderate I usually obtain permission from an appropriate mod, first. But i want to make it clear that when that happens, it’s not meant to be punitive (or to require a warning), it’s just meant to make the place easier for posters to follow the conversations.
Yep, it does. If most people feel it’s better to do that for that thread, I can respect it.
That wasn’t a hijack, though - just a “deep dive” into the proposition. MrDibble presented statistics that he felt supported his contention, other posters responded, “that’s not the correct way to analyze those statistics so they don’t say what you think they say.” That seems related to the central topic of the thread, to me.
Fwiw, when I started moderating, i was not advised to avoid posting in the pit. I do generally try to avoid dissing posters there, but that is definitely allowed. I believe the rule is that a mod can’t start a pit thread about a poster, but may participate in one that someone else started.
Cool.
This is what I recall and considering we came aboard at the same time, makes sense I recall the same instructions. @ParallelLines is our newest Moderator. What do you recall on this subject?
I haven’t seen What Exit? do anything that seemed biased to me.
As I understood it, it was one thing to post in the Pit, another thing to post your feelings about another poster when you are a moderator, for reasons stated upthread. You can say “I’m not speaking as a moderator, just a poster” but there’s a decent contingent of people on this board who will then scour the board for evidence of bias. And then there’s always a chance you do end up having to ban a poster you’ve stated you dislike, which also results in accusations of bias.
This board doesn’t seem as drama-prone as it used to be, though. So maybe it doesn’t matter any more. It used to be you couldn’t do anything as a moderator without someone getting pissed off about it.
Our “How to Moderate” instructions don’t mention the Pit posting at all, so that came directly and verbally from Ed.
We do go out of our way to use both the Staff Color option and something like Moderating or Warning if what we’ve posted is official.
I even added a macro (a template) for Moderating: as I use it so often.
There might be some housekeeping stuff that only gets the Staff Color.
I’ve made this post have the staff color as an example. Though this is nothing official as a moderator.
I received the same verbal instructions, not forbidden to post in the Pit about another poster, but discouraged, and for avoiding the appearance of bias. Which is one of the reasons my participation in several poster specific Pit threads has declined. I had once posted a very neutral comment about a poster that was later confirmed to be a troll, and they did indeed try to use it as a pretext, so I consider it a verified best practice, but again as @What_Exit just cited, it’s more “institutional knowledge” rather than a formal part of the rules.
The fact that there is now a mod color for moderating-specific posts probably also makes it easier for people to distinguish mentally the difference between posting as a moderator and posting as a poster.
Oddly, vB could have had that, but for good reason, they ran vB as vanilla as possible. They didn’t want the headaches of any mods (modifications).
On a small board, playing with mods is easy (and mostly fun to be honest).
The moderation is significantly more competent and consistent now and there’s way more transparency. At least from my vantage point. I haven’t had cause to complain in years.
It does.
I would distinguish, at this point, between “moderating hijacks” as an injunction on poster behavior versus “moderating hijacks” as housekeeping. In the other fora, posting off topic can get you a mod note, and if a posters has a habit of hijacking, we might escalate to warnings, and even bans in really egregious cases. That’s generally not going to happen in the Pit.
We do sometimes moderate hijacks for the purposes of housekeeping, by breaking posts out of an existing thread and putting them in their own, both for the purposes of keeping discussion on track in the original thread, and for allowing people who might be interested in the side conversation to see it, when they were not reading the originating thread.
One traditional way of registering disagreement with a Pit thread is a deliberate hijacking. This can be anything from, “Actually, OP, let’s talk about your behavior,” to sharing recipes as a way of signaling disengagement. You’re not going to see hijacks like that split into their own thread. It’s mostly only something done in the omnibus threads, where there’s a lot of different, short-lived conversations happening at the same time, and one big topic can drive out the other conversations inadvertently.
Since this sort of thing is not really about rules enforcement, we’re not super strict about forum assignments for it. It’s more akin to fixing typos or closing quote tags - housekeeping tasks that any moderator can pick up if they happen to be the first one to see it. That said, the other mods are pretty good about checking with me first. Splitting out posts to make a separate thread is a bit tedious, so if another mod is volunteering to do it, I’m not complaining.
There’s no rule against mentioning the Giraffe boards, but your concern for what mods do in their spare time is noted.
The only actual rule about mod posting in the Pit is that we’re not supposed to start Pit threads about other posters. Participation in existing Pit threads is allowed. I don’t recall being discouraged from doing it when I became a mod, but that was back during the paleolithic, and my memory isn’t all that.
Good rule. If that happened, my Passing Fancy would be to tell them Where to Get Off.