I foolishly opened the hidden post that I’m sure you were referring to, and I can attest that “stupid hijack” is a lenient description. It might as well have been about an airplane on a treadmill or cat declawing.
I will accept both “stupid” and “hijack”, although in my weak defense I was hoping to get an on-topic response to my question.
Surely he didn’t mean you either - it was post #79.
Two concepts are butting heads.
Normally an OP gets to determine what the thread is about. That’s why there’s a prohibition of hijacks. But here we’re seeing an OP asking that people stick to a narrow interpretation of the OP and being told that’s junior modding.
But again, we see many threads in which a group of people decide for themselves what should be discussed in a thread and gang up on those are opposed. I’ve seen it in threads about tv series, threads about peoples’ pet technologies, and about social customs.
Weirdly, the mods always take the side of the mob who go on the attack rather than the minority being attacked. I’ve never understood that.
Moreover, posters who create OPs that are vague, rambling, or utterly meaningless that led to threads that are entirely hijacks because they can’t be anything else usually get a pass.
I look for patterns in everything, perhaps much more than most, but that’s what I do. Inconsistencies disrupt patterns and so they stand out. Patterns may be good or bad, and disruptions therefore can be bad or good. I don’t see this inconsistency as good.
The point is that an OP can’t start a debate:
“Proposed: cats are good, not evil”
and then say that they would like to restrict the scope of the discussion to how wonderful cats are.
I’m not sure if you’re joking - you surely see the distinction between a thread in MPSIMS for cat lovers to hang out and a thread in GD that is a debate over the merits of cats.
That’s why I said “pretty much” and not “exactly”, but no, I wasn’t being serious, the specifity of your example to that moderation amused me.
It was not deliberate, but I was familiar with the cat avatar thread scandal, so maybe unconsciously that subject area came to mind.
Unsurprisingly, I have no problem restricting a thread to how wonderful cats are. Even a debate. 
Your mod post did come on strong I found it dismissive and belittling. Was that true moderation, which is to referee, arbitrate or conciliate a session, or an opportunity to flex your authority? Where’s the kinder gentler tone y’all promised?
Did I promise that? I don’t recall.
The gentle part I suppose was not giving a warning and reopening the thread.
Just wanted to follow up on this - the OP get’s to determine, yes, but in the OP. If the OP is poorly written, vague or rambling (as this one is), they don’t really get to Dictate afterwards what they meant.
Now, there are degrees. I’ve seen OPs go back and say, ‘ha ha, okay, fair, what I mean is ____’ or ‘I would like to focus on blah, although I should have been more clear’.
Declaring something is verboten though, especially for a poorly written original post, has been seen as Jr modding before, or refusing to debate a point. I believe @lissener fell afoul of similar situations in which they refused to allow people to talk about subjects they didn’t want to talk about that were on topic.
I see the thread stayed open, which I think would count as kindler, gentler. Another option would have been to close it, and suggest the OP rewrite it as a structured debate.
Leaving a few notes, especially considering the poorly structured debate, and even leaving it in GD rather than moving it, does seem to be if anything, a generous and helpful moderation.
FTR - I started reading the thread when it was new, and the OP’s confrontational attitude in the thread turned me off of what seems to be an interesting discussion. So I’m not without emotional investment in it.
I don’t think anyone was posting in truly bad faith (well, mostly) or unfairly, although several may have done so with bad judgement, as have we all. 
Posting this in the existing ATMB topic,
Could a mod clarify if discussing the broader subject given by the topic title , rather than the OP’s specific proposal, is on-topic? In light of the 2020 rules on hyperspecific thread scope. If not on-topic we can make a spin-off.
(i.e. how best to incorporate more African American focused lessons into existing U.S History and Literature classes, whereas OP has been clear she wanted to debate adding a mandatory Black Studies course in its own right)
@What_Exit who has been moderating the thread.
~Max
Broader without getting too broad is fine. Especially as the main topic has been pretty well discussed and the OP was not written in a way where GD Mods were going to enforce a laser focused topic requirement.
Again, I never intended to dictate the boundaries of the debate for others. I said my intent was to maintain a “laser focus” on Black studies, meaning that’s how I’m going to write my posts. And I did. I stuck to my guns and argued the point on which I (not necessarily anybody else) was laser focused. It got argued down. I lost. OK then.
But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood
I have a thread I started that I asked for opinions on two options. Others decided to hijack it to talk about a third option. I even tried to get it back on track by saying I tried that third option and can we get back to the original two options and the other posters blew that off. Have fun with your new thread I guess, but as for me as the OP that thread is useless to me.
What thread and what forum?
Forums do have different modding and even moderators.
When somebody tries a blatantly major hijack, like some weirdo tried to tell me the Civil War was about “states’ rights,” the moderator was right to step in and shut that shit down right quick. It means no matter how lax or stringent the OP was about it, there eventually is a hard limit to how far a poster can veer away from the stated topic. (and that is the moderator’s call)
Note Post 7