Yes. Because it would then be breaking news, not speculation. But if Russia goes nuclear, the SDMB will be the last thing on my mind.
In a thread about hijacking, since I’m one of the mods who moderates them more strictly, I think it’s appropriate for me to clarify where I’m coming from.
Re hijacks in P&E and GD:
I moderate those hard for several reasons. First, the issues discussed are often narrow and focused. Second, particularly in P&E, threads can run fast when an issue is topical. Sorting out lengthy hijacks after they’ve happened is an unpleasant, time-consuming task.
I am not inclined to split threads in those forums due to hijacks because our number one rule is to not hijack threads. I have and will continue to split threads in some instances, such as when an offshoot discussion of wide interest arises organically out of the main discussion. But splitting threads never guarantees that people will abide by the division, and hijacks can often continue even if the effort to split them has been made by a mod. If you doubt this, spend some time reviewing the various classified documents scandals threads in P&E.
Re goofing-around hijacks in P&E/GD, my personal tolerance for those runs to about 10 posts. If you just can’t resist making your Schroedinger and/or bigly jokes or a pun, try not to be the 11th person to do so. Other P&E/GD mods may have a different tolerance for them. What we have in common is dedication to keeping threads on track.
I don’t consider making aside comments to be hijacks unless you as the poster solicit additional input from others and then don’t drop the offshoot discussion after a couple of posts. People are allowed to express their opinions, even if others would rather not hear them. In my view, it’s the pursuit of additional off-topic information that makes an aside comment into a hijack.
Example:
In a thread about the choice to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon:
Poster: “I really hate the way it looks like Xi Jinping is always smiling. What do others think?”
If you gain a reputation as someone who appears to hijack as a matter of personal amusement, you’ll get little consideration from me.
Hijacks happen in the course of animated dialogue and I get that. We want to foster open discussion. But try to be aware when you’re taking a thread off topic and ask yourself if doing it is worthy of the thread you’re posting in. And if you see a hijack happening, please don’t hesitate to flag it promptly.
Re hijacks in MPSIMS other than Breaking News threads, IMHO and QZ:
I tend to moderate those very little for hijacks unless a flag is thrown and the hijack is disruptive. I tend to let other assigned mods take the lead in those forums for hijacks.
Hope this helps to clarify why hijacking moderation may vary from forum to forum.
I don’t think this question has been explicitly asked, but related to the concept of breaking news threads: how long does a news topic remain “breaking”? If a fictional 1930s SDMB were discussing the breaking news of Germany invading Poland in 1939, would the thread still be a breaking news topic on VE Day?
Thanks for this. I don’t spend as much time in P&E and GD as I do in several other forums, so it’s good to know that’s how you roll.
Thanks also to the other mods who have explained their policies in their respective forums.
You’re most welcome!
We have different forums for different reasons, and as such, rules must vary in how they’re applied.
I do think hijacks are one of the most misunderstood concerns on the forum, so thank you for giving us an opportunity to share our approaches and explain why.
I agree with this. I think a thread dedicated to current news of the war is very useful. There are a lot of sources posted in the current thread beyond what is available on a major site like CNN - foreign bloggers/tweeters, military-specific sites, etc. I like having a place I can easily see those updates without having to wade through a bunch of speculation and political discussion.
But I also like the speculation and political discussion, so a general interest thread makes sense too. The breaking news thread might have 1/10 the activity of the general thread, but that’s not a bad thing. I really don’t think it’s that difficult to continue a deeper discussion about a breaking news item in a separate thread. That’s what links are for.
I’m not following the Ukraine thread much, but I am regularly checking the Elon/Twitter threads. At first I was skeptical about the need for splitting them, but I have to admit it’s working pretty well.
It might not be a bad thing to make that practice more common.
… I don’t know how to use tags this way.
I’m curious as to roughly what percentage of our membership does. Even after 2 1/2 years, I’m still accustomed to the navigation scheme of the old board and still ‘think’ of board navigation in those terms today.
EDIT: I just went to the “root” of the SDMB Discourse forum and and pulled on the “all tags” drop-down at upper left that I always ignore. Is that what power users are doing?
You could do it that way, but I usually use the search page if I’m looking for something specific. Tags are most useful in Café Society, which I don’t visit too often. But if you want to stay on top of anything Ukraine on the SDMB, bookmarking Topics tagged ukraine-invasion is one way to do so. Likewise for a breaking news “forum”, you can bookmark Topics tagged breaking-news.
~Max
Feel free to start one. And feel free to link it in the breaking news thread.
Personally, i think it would be happiest in the pit, but p&e would also work.
I have been asked not to post in the Ukraine breaking news thread until further notice. It was due to a comment that I made that I will admit was not appropriate for the forum. Velocity was the primary subject of that comment, although there are a couple of others. That thread has become a mixture of real news and gross celebration of a very dangerous war, in my opinion. If my comments are egregious, so are his.
I don’t get that vibe from that thread at all. 
For context, you posted “You all should chill out and stop jerking off at the idea of ww3.” Velocity has posted nothing like that.
Fair enough. And I know I am a minority view. But he has a real habit of suggesting an escalation to the war. He has an obsession with ethnic conflict, actually, if you look at his avatar. I will admit my one comment was out of line, but his comments are out of line as well.
might I suggest that this is a thread about hijacks in ATMB, and it’s not a good place to litigate who said what that was how bad in other threads.
You aren’t talking about how hijack-y those posts are, but other issues with them.
Yes, really. Maybe you just went there at a bad time. The Pit thread about Musk’s Twitter fiasco is my go-to source for the latest info. Posters like @Smapti and many others bring in updates from all kinds of sources that I otherwise wouldn’t see. Sure, being the Pit, there are hijacks, and joking around, mostly jokes ridiculing Musk, but I don’t find them intrusive and it’s generally pretty well self-policing.
FTR, as I already said, I support removing the “Breaking News” tag from the Ukraine thread. I think it more accurately reflects that the thread really is both news and general discussion about the news.
You are right.
I imagine if you do that and a new thread is started as a new breaking news thread (because there will continue to be news about the war for as long as it continues) then it can just start with whatever the next news story is without needing to reference other stories from the previous thread. Because those are no longer “news”. That seems like the easiest way to do it.
I don’t see a need for a new thread unless there was some spectacularly major new development. My thought was that news could just be added to the existing thread as has been happening all along already, along with related discussion. It’s now in its second incarnation and the two parts currently have a total of over 12,000 posts. The only change would be that discussions not immediately related to breaking news would be allowed, which to some extent has been happening anyway. The one thread ban that we had that I fully agree with would still be valid, because it was someone persistently posting “news” that was extremely biased and almost certainly false, so it was neither legitimate news nor useful discussion.
Well, I explained above why I like having a separate breaking news thread. I get that you don’t mind wading through the commentary to find the news bits, but not everyone reads the way you do.