# Why do so many posters have trouble staying on topic? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 28, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-posters-have-trouble-staying-on-topic/1027125 "2026-01-28T17:13:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 176
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-posters-have-trouble-staying-on-topic/1027125/176 "2026-04-22T02:28:10Z")
I’ll point you to the specific moderation for the split in the Iran thread which had already had a ton of extremely off topic posts and long segues of Trump bashing. > [@United States and Israel are bombing Iran {for current/ongoing events, past/future have specific threads}](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-states-and-israel-are-bombing-iran-for-current-ongoing-events-past-future-have-specific-threads/1028071/582): > > First, I apologize, @iiandyiiii, for giving confusing and contrary moderator instructions. It is understandable why you got confused, and that’s on me. Second, after discussion among P&E moderators, the following is directed to all posters: The subject conflict is likely to be protracted and branch off into many different lines of potential discussion. The current thread has already become unruly. For these reasons, as well as our rules against having omnibus threads, we’ve decided a better… In a perfect world, the original thread would have been _breaking news_ with a follow along P&E thread, as is most frequently the case. Posters chose not too, and so all the discussion was in the P&E thread - no real, workable way to put the genie back in the bottle. Thus, as stated in the link above: > The current thread is to discuss actual actions being taken. It’s not a Breaking News thread, but let’s keep the discussion confined to what is actually happening and the immediate, direct repercussions. Therefore, an effort to try to make a Breaking-News-style P&E thread. It was a kludge, but note the many, Many hijacks that had occurred long before we tried to fix it. Given that Speculation was normally not allowed in a Breaking News thread, we split off past and future to explicitly allow freedom of speculation. Was it a perfect fix? Apparently not. Was it well received at the time we rolled it out: > [@I object to my warning in "United States and Israel are bombing Iran"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-object-to-my-warning-in-united-states-and-israel-are-bombing-iran/1028106/46): > > Thanks mods. Great answer. Yes, pretty much! But with perfect 20/20 hindsight, we could probably done better. If I had a time machine and all… well, perfect knowledge from the future would fix a LOT of problems, no? So, and back to the _Present_, we’ve rolled out the HT option, which also will not be a perfect fix but it’s _another_ option. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-posters-have-trouble-staying-on-topic/1027125)._