Question about OP's control over thread's progress

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It is no secret that I have had some confusion over moderation WRT hijacks. Of course, I don’t know how much of that moderation is mod-driven or in response to complaints. And in the past I’ve been told I cannot ask to have threads I stated closed when the went sideways.

So I found the latest moderation in this thread curious.

Exactly what control does an OP have over how the thread progresses? How is it determined which hijacks are allowed?

I am not objecting to the initial mod note in that thread. My personal pinionwas that the thread was not so active that the hijack would cause excessive confusion/inconvenience. But I do not get to make such decisions. Tho I disagree with many mod actions WRT hijacks and different rules for different forums, I respect their ability to act as they do.

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I’m going to speak to Politics & Elections & Great Debates with this. But it somewhat applies to Cafe Society also. This is my take and not a universal rule, though I think it is fairly consistent for the P&E/GD mod team.

The OP does not own their thread, but the more detail they put into the OP, generally the more we try to moderate to keep it on topic.
If an OP flags later posts, we are more likely to moderate then from a non-OP.

The other factor is often time. When a thread is very busy, we’re more likely to stop off-topic stuff, once a thread has died down, we’re more likely to tolerate it. There is a lot of non-black & white decision making that goes into this process.

Keep in mind that Omnibus threads are specifically forbidden in P&E & GD. So this also factors in. I believe that rule went in January 2020.

We are discussing aspects of the hijacking rule currently, @Aspenglow got a conversation going on this last night.

As to Cafe Society & In My Humble Opinion, we usually allow a lot more leeway in those. The how busy is a thread really comes into play for Cafe Society. If the conversation has really died down, then we’re more likely to allow diversions and also posters are far less likely to flag.

breaking-news we in theory allow the least leeway.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share & The BBQ Pit hijacking is very rarely enforced and is for the most part allowed. These are free ranging discussions in most cases.

Your example is tricky as the OP has very little to it. I might have leaned towards allowing the Church voting place conversation as it was kind of on point as I’m not really sure what that OP as written was expecting to discuss. But I also see it as not really germane to the article linked. So I think that could have gone either way.

Hopefully this answers your questions.

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The 2 key sections from the rules for this discussion.

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Yeah, but one thing it DID have in it (icluding a linked photo) was that the polling place was in a church. I thought that the details of church polling place in politically conservative area were fair game. Especially since, as you said, the thread was not really busy.

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I’ve given you the parameters and everything else, but as I didn’t moderate that thread, thus I can’t give you an exact answer as why those modnotes were given.

Also at this point, that conversation is now allowed in that thread. That is how I read the second note.

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I’m responding to your queries before coffee, so please allow for that.

My interpretation of the rules: An OP has some control over how a thread progresses. In the past, if a poster has included language in their OP that they don’t mind some hijacks in their thread, we’ve generally respected that to a point. @What_Exit clarifies that we still won’t permit omnibus threads.

He also indicates that the OP does not own their thread, and they don’t. We have final say over how to moderate any thread. Nonetheless, I agree with his point that the more detail included in an OP, the more guidance we have for keeping it on track as the OP wishes. And an OP can always flag deviations in their own thread if they feel the thread is going off the rails. We will usually accede to their wishes – though not always.

In this case, the moderation was in response to a thrown flag. My review of the OP did not indicate that discussion regarding where polling places are located had anything to do with a Macomb, IL election judge being removed from office, and I agreed with the poster who threw the flag.

When the OP ignored the moderation and responded to the hijacks, my feeling was that if she didn’t care, I wasn’t going to, either. I might have felt differently in another circumstance. Still, it troubled me and I don’t appreciate any poster just ignoring moderator instructions, even in their own thread.

To me, it’s not about how active a thread is or isn’t, or if a hijack will cause “excessive” confusion/inconvenience. It’s whether any post is made in keeping with the OP – and that’s all. Many times, posters aren’t very careful about how they craft their OPs, and we’re left to just interpret this best we can.

There are no hard and fast rules for when we intervene. We don’t always agree with flags that are thrown, and those are disregarded. Even among P&E mods, there are differing tolerances for hijacks and how far they can go, though we do try for consistency as much as we can.

I know you’ve asked for exactitude, but I’m afraid that’s the one thing you’re not going to get.

And yes, as stated by @What_Exit, the discussion about polling places is now allowed in the thread. However, I disagree that it was allowed at all by how the OP was crafted. It wasn’t. As I pointed out in the moderation, the hijack was a fine topic of discussion. Just not in that thread, based on how the OP was stated.

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I find that a curious metaphor, because in sports, flags are most often thrown by officials. Whereas here, the “flag” was apparently “thrown” by a competitor/participant - or a non-participating fan. “Throwing a flag” in sports suggests a violation was observed by someone with responsibility and knowledge. Here, to the contrary, someone just made a complaint.

So let’s recap:

  • OP posts about an action at a polling place in a church, and links a story with a picture of a church. Other than the words and picture in the link, why on earth would anyone think churches as polling places was relevant to the event under discussion? :roll_eyes:
    -THREE people - including the OP - make a grand total of 5 posts in the first day. Pretty much all of them are more snark than substance. I can see how a hijack would distract from the complicated threads of that spirited discussion!
    -Then, crickets for 2 days.
    -On the 4th day, there are 5 more posts, by 3 different users. 4 of those 5 posts mention the use of churches for polling places.

Wow! That baby was reeling out of control in a hurry! Something MUST be DONE! :astonished_face:

Who the hell complained? Not the OP, obviously. Not likely the 3 people who posted about churches as polling places. So was it one of the 2 posters on the first day who posted snark? Even tho they hadn’t posted for 2 days, the horrific hijack was preventing them from continuing their briliiant repartee?

So Aspenglow steps in - because they just HAD to! The discussion simply wasn’t “in keeping with the OP.” :roll_eyes: And they have to point out that they disagree with other mods and feel disrespected by the OP.

Good job upholding those precious and inviolable rules, there! Let’s see how many posts have been posted since? I’ll bet that flag thrower came back to post what they had previously felt constrained from posting. No?

Nice threadkill! :+1:

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I’m the OP of said thread. The church sign was indeed the picture accompanying the story, and perhaps someone filed a report implying that this could potentially turn into an off-topic poonado storm and mods intervened.

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The icon you can click to report a potential problem literally looks like a little flag. Posters can “flag” a post to alert the moderators to review it. If you don’t like the name, that’s really a Discourse thing, not a SDMB thing.

And i don’t think of posting here as a competitive event. Flags are thrown by other posters. Not by “competitors”.

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Me. I’m the one who clicked on the flag, and filed it with the mods.

The posts in question – about whether it is appropriate for houses of worship to be polling places – had nothing to do with what the OP was about. It’s an interesting – but entirely separate – conversation.

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Actually, me too. After Dinsdale posted, I replied. Then slash2k also posted about churches used as polling places. At that point I feared the point of an election judge showing partisanship was slipping away and I flagged my own post and asked a mod to nudge us gently back to the meat of the OP.

I had no idea kenobi_65 (or anyone else) had also flagged the thread. But, sure enough, the thread had run off the rails by then. I was a part of that, and I’m sorry for my part in it.

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Thinking about it more, I had flagged the post by nearwildhaven, which she made after the first mod note from Aspenglow, and apparently ignoring the mod instruction. Aspenglow replied to my flag by noting that nearwildhaven had started the thread (I had not remembered or known that), and otherwise mostly shared with me what they then put in the second mod note about the OP seeming to be OK with the hijack.