Discussion of any particular hijack that might or might not have occurred in any particular thread, especially the Pit, is expressly prohibited. General observations:
No thread, except for one of trivial length, has ever progressed without meandering back and forth about this and that. Typically, they begin on topic, but eventually veer. I don’t imagine this thread will be any exception.
Pit threads in particular often tend to merge into either a meltdown, a rhetorical slugfest, a pile-on, a series of jokes, or a moderatorial closure. There are exceptions, and some Pit threads have been more productive than some Great Debates threads in terms of insights gained and shared.
If hijacking is defined as digression from the OP, then the charge of hijacking ought to apply equally, regardless of personage or historical enmity. In other words, it cannot be that Smith posts off-topic and Jones posts off-topic, and Smith is hijacking while Jones is not.
Raising the topic of hijacking, when the thread is not about hijacking, is itself a hijack if hijacking is defined as digression from the OP. Unfortunately, non-comprehension of this principle provides ammunition of a sort for any arbitrary intellectual worm who has nothing to counter an argument, and therefore withdraws into a hole from where he might hurl an accusation of hijacking.
A response cannot possibly be a hijack owing to the very definition of “response”. Before there could be a response, there had to be a post to which one could respond. If the response is a hijack by association, then the post to which it is addressed must of necessity be the original hijack.
It had been suggested that premise number 5 was weak, owing to the fact that a response may be deliberately nonresponsive in spirit. I concede that point, and would like to make that the central theme of the debate. At what point has a response been so unresponsive that it constitutes a hijack?
It had been suggested that responding with political or religious spin might constitute hijacking, particularly if it is done with sufficient frequency. I disagree. It is only natural that a person will interpret posts in the spirit of his world view. If I see a discussion about problems with so-called public schools, for example, I honestly believe that a perfectly good solution would be to eliminate them. Why ought it to be the case that ordinary responses about trying this and trying that (few of which are ever original) are in some way superior to less popular or more extreme responses? The people who say we need more teachers, or the people who say we need to teach creationism along with evolution are offering up their opinions based on their own worldviews? Why should the view that public schools are intrinsically a problem be forbidden?
I feel that this approach deliberately or accidentally misses the context of thread.
Using your example, while one might disagree with public schools, the vast majority of people in the thread are discussing them within the context of their existence. When someone posts to challenge their very existence (or whether taxes should exist, in the context of a thread about how they should be spent), one is making a massive, fundamental hijack, that will cause the thread to degenerate way more than a mere aside, snipe, or joke.
Personally, if I see threads about the nuances of a particular religious sect or writing, or stuff about the canon of some sci-fi, or discussing which semiautomatic is a better weapon, despite my beliefs and taste, I try not to hive in and say “well all religion/sci fi/guns are crap and here’s my proof” because the thread contexts are those subjects. I feel this would be an egregious abuse of the thread. I just don’t open the damn threads.
I do understand your point, and I do not disagree with it.
If people were discussing, say, whether a public school’s textbooks should or should not have disclaimers in their biology books, it wouldn’t even occur to me to mention eliminating the school. That’s because the topic is the book. But when a discussion is about problems with public schools in general, and I believe that public schools in general are intrinsically problematic — that is, they introduce problems simply by existing — I don’t see how that is a hijack.
Just as you’ve said you would not come into a thread which is discussing cannon law in order to say that theism is the root of all evil, so I would treat it as well. But if you saw a discussion on, say, the general benefits of theism to mankind, do you think it would be unseemly for you to express a belief that the entire premise is flawed; i.e., theism is more destructive than beneficial?
I must say that (to my mind at least) the use of the term “hijacking” implies at least some intent on the part of the poster - in other words, an attempt to make a post that is off-topic or unhelpful to the flow of the discussion. It seems that this is most often detected by the context of the post in which the “hijack” comment occurs - as part of a rational well phrased post, it would be treated very differently from a one line, bald statement, no matter how much the two comments may superficially resemble each other.
The dificulty in defining “hijack” in the context of SDMB threads is that for a hijack to occur it has to be more than one post. A single post can be an attempted hijack. It can even be the start of a hijack. But a single post, off topic, in a thread ofeven 50 posts (only 1 page) would simply be irrelevant. That is why some people focus on the religious or political spin. They are simply much more likely to result in a totally new discussion.
For instance, your example of elliminating public schools. If the thread was about public schools ingeneral, floating the idea of elliminating them would not, to me, be a hijack. However, if you used, just as an example, controversial libertarian principles as justifications for your arguments, the thread could very well veer off into a discussion about those principles instead of about public schools. Add a couple of shots about Bush from either side, and we have a full blown hijack. Your hypothetical post merely suggesting doing away with public schools might not itself have been a hijack. But it could later be pointed to as the start of it.
You make a good point, but it has not necessarily been my experience, broadly speaking, that it matters how well thought out or detailed the post is. Let’s take another rather famous and oft-used SDMB example — a discussion about something the church or a church has done. Someone hooks onto the angle that the church in question is, say, bigoted against, oh, red headed people. Their post is rather long-winded, and while generally on topic, wends and winds all over the place, including, let’s say, some sort of declaration that there is no rational proof of God’s existence.
Now, it seems to me that, even though the post had some on-topic elements, it was a hijack of a sort because the poster got off six rounds of jabs at the church in question, at churches in general, at people of faith, at the history of Christendom, at the teaching of creationism, and at the very existence of God.
When a post is that desultory, it seems to me that it is fair game for being hit for any or all of its content. Why should the assertion that there is no rational proof of God’s existence be allowed to stand when it is patently false? Why does the first come first serve volley automatically preclude and exclude any other off-topic response?
A good example, Perv. But let me ask you why it is the post that interprets the OP by libertarian principles, rather than the post that first calls into question those principles per se the problem? Why is the mere expression of one’s viewpoint regarding the topic a gateway to Hijackistan while the person who focuses the discussion on the principles of the first poster is not?
For example, suppose I were to enter some hypothetical thread discussing the OP’s assertion that parents no longer trust public schools. Suppose there are already several responses, and they are pretty much the usual: (1) cite?, (2) left-biased stats, (3) right-biased stats, (4) anecdote about how things use to be, (5) denial of premise by parent who trusts schools, (6) affirmation of premise by parent who does not trust schools, (7) citation of legalities and jurisdictions, and so on. Suppose I suggest that we eliminate public schools and allow parents to establish or select schools that they trust. Every person, 1 through 7, brought to the discussion something they had on their minds — everything from a drive-by cite request to a full-on examination of the legal aspects. Why is a philosophical treatment any less valid than the others? And why is it not the fault of someone who probes that philosophy rather than the philosophizer if a hijack ensues. Would you accuse numbers 2 and 3 of hijacking if someone bursts in to shoot holes in the stats and starts a discussion about statistical methods? Would you accuse number 4 of hijacking if someone drops by to ask questions about the anecdote because they suspect it is made up or something?
That would be a hijack, or an attempted hijack, because it doesn’t refer to the OP.
If I say, “More people like chocolate ice cream than vanilla” and you popped in to say that “Ice cream is oppression of the proletariat!” you would be attempting a hijack. The OP in your example is not asking for alternatives to public schools. The OP as you have it written isn’t even looking for reasons that people don’t trust public schools. The OP is asserting that people don’t trust public schools.
Your examples of other responses address the OP directly, with the possible exceptions of 4 and 7. They might be addressing the OP or they might not (I would tend to think they aren’t). So, 4 and 7 might be hijacks. That doesn’t make anything else less a hijack.
Now, if the OP were “Why don’t people trust public schools?” then things get much broader. Then not only have we cause to discuss the truth of the assertion, but also the whys. And a reply might be tailored that explains why the poster doesn’t trust public schools based on their philosophical position.
And I think there is something very simple at work: When people have a pet issue, no matter what it is, they become extraordinarily annoying for others. Their attempted “hijacks” become all the more obvious and annoying. They aren’t just beating a dead horse, they are deliberately killing someone else’s horse to beat on it, too. I’m guilty of this. You are guilty of this. We should both cut it the hell out.
Just wanted to chime in to note that hijack-free discussion is boring. For example, check the Angel board at Television Without Pity. The topics are decided beforehand by the moderators and no digressions from the subject are allowed. So if you want to talk about “Not Fade Away” there’s a topic for that. If you want to talk about events throughout Season 5 that lead up to it, there’s a different topic for that. And if you just want to note how badass Hamilton was in those last few episodes, there’s a different topic for that. All that topic jumping is a pain in the ass when it can all be done in one thread.
Heh. This is exactly what I was thinking. If I were to make this request in actuality, it would be a hijack; if someone else made it seriously, I’d criticize them for hijacking, because although Lib’s statement is patently false as near as I can tell, it’s not the meat of the thread. Going after it would be injecting my own priorities into the thread in an inappropriate fashion.
Sorry, my bad. I did not mean to suggest that the post that started the hijack could then be blamed for it. In fact, in the scenario I was talking about it could very well be the response which called into question the libertarian principles which “is to blame for the hijack”.
At the same time, however, I can see how two such posts could be written so that no hijack occured. Or, if it did, neither was to blame. For instance, if the first post mentioned elliminating public schools, mentioned the libertarian principles justifying this, but then specifically said that such principles were a topic for another thread. Or if he did not, and another poster questioned those principles while mentioning that they were really a topic for another thread. In either case the posters took enough precautions, IMHO, to prevent a hijack. If a few other posters insisted on ranting about those principles they would be to blame, and not the posters I mentioned first.
I hope I answered that it is not. In the example you laid out here bringing up the philosphical points would not in and of itself be a hijack. Additionally, each and every one of the other points you mentioned could have started a hijack. If, for instance, the cite request started a debate about what web pages really constitute good cites and perhaps why the media is so liberal etc. The legal points could easily degenerate into a hijack about particular minutia of law.
What I was trying to get accross is that it is not IMHO possible to hijack a thread by a single post. Even if you point to a single post which starts a hijack, it is not the fault of that poster if a hijack ensues. Its sort of like the dreaded “T” word but in the opposite direction. With "T"ing you can blame the originator, but you have to blame everyone who feeds him as well. With hijacking, you have to blame the feeders more than the poster who starts the frenzy.
Now, if the poster who starts the frenzy then comes back and continues the hijack in post after post he gets just as much blame as everyone else.
I hope that’s clearer.
What we need is some way to measure when a hijack has actually occured. How about if 10% or more of the posts are completely off topic?
This seems a little strict. Are you saying that a post cannot bring up solutions to a problem unless the OP expressly asks for solutions? If I start a thread about gun violence in America you seem to be saying that gun control is hijack. Did you mean this that strictly?
Actually, I find the notion that he does indeed know what he’s inviting in to be doxastically compelling. The invitation to “provide a rational proof of God’s existence” is onerously tied to two provisions — namely, that it (1) does not “beg the question”, and (2) does not define God as “something that must exist”. Those conditions betray both a cozy familiarity with and a profound ignorance of the Modal Ontological Proof. I am convinced that the writer has been here before.
Not a bad idea except that we first need a way to measure what the topic is.
As you went on to explain to JS, the omission of some aspect of the topic does not preclude that aspect. For me, in an ideal world, or I suppose on an ideal message board, the more aspects of a topic that are covered, the better — especially in a debate. And it honestly isn’t fair, in a fundamental way, that the person who begins the hijack by what you call “feeding” the hypothetical philosopher, has the last word. The philosoper says, “Public schools are intrinsically problematic because the question of who owns them is too murky.” The hijacker seizes upon that and says, “We’ve discussed this before. Here is a list of threads that debunk libertarianism…” You are giving to the hijacker more power than he would have had had you allowed him to be challenged.
As I see it, the problem is to be found in a combination of two factors: (1) our expectations and perceptions as posters, and (2) the design of the board.
In my experience, actual threaded discussions were at one time the norm. You responded to a post, and that post and your response created a hierarchical organization called a “thread”. Any and all responses to the original response and all responses to the responses were captured in that thread. You could then examine the tendrils coming off the opening post and decide which, if any, interested you. Or you could respond to the OP, thereby starting an entirely new tendril. But here, there is no hierarchy. The entire thread is linear. That means that it is more difficult to keep up with which posts go with which tendrils.
Given the design we have, it is more difficult to avoid side discussions that people are having, and so there is the perception that they overwhelm the thread. Unfortunately, there do exist people who are both so rude and so clueless that they imagine their own side discussion to be topical but everyone else’s to be a hijack. And the accusation of hijacker is as hard to shake as the accusation of child abuse. I am not comparing their severity. Certainly child abuse is a far more heinous accusation than thread hijacking, but my point is that a person may derail an entire thread simply by launching an accusation of hijacking. And if he is both unscrupulous and dislikes a particular poster, he can use this technique to full effect — especially if he is joined by allies, and his accusation snowballs into a pile-on.
I do not think that the percentage of off-topic posts is an accurate way to determine if a thread has been hijacked. It is entirely possible for an active thread to sustain multiple off-topic posts yet still continue in its discussion relative to the OP.
IMO, a more accurate way to find out if a thread has been hijacked is to focus on the thread’s most recent submissions. If the last 5 or 10 posts of a thread have had little or nothing to do with the flow of the discussion leading up to that point, the thread has been hijacked. I do not see any reason to suggest that the longer thread is, the more posts required to hijack it.
I agree with pervert that a single post can not be held responsible for a hijack.