I think a message board is a different sort of thing than either formal speeches made in public or conversations in person among friends; and it calls for a different sort of code shifting than either — in significant part, though not entirely, because it’s an ongoing conversation among people on different schedules and in different time zones, who are therefore not all seeing the conversation at the same time or the same speed.
While this has disadvantages, I think it also has significant advantages. But it requires a different way of keeping the conversation coherent. I think the moderators and the rules here mostly do a pretty good job.
Mostly same as in real life: some people just like to hear themselves talk. Especially about themselves.
Not saying that a thread’s conversation cannot evolve organically after the subject of the OP has actually been addressed some, but we often are worse than a class of kindergartners.
I am definitely not the type to start threads. I never have been. Even my “hijacks” are responses to what others have said. They don’t have enough to stand on their own.
The thing that I notice is how often the only real grief I see on these boards come from this type of moderation. It can just get so heated. I don’t think in general that keeping on topic is bad, but it’s also not that important that it needs to result in people so upset at each other, accusing the other of bad faith. Posters lash out at mods, getting so upset about it, and mods even sometimes get resentful of posters.
I do think hijacks are human nature. I’ve never in my life had a conversation with even a single person without hijacks occurring. It would be nice if there was an easy way for trusted posters to click a button and move everyting off into a new thread. Maybe have it be vote based so that multiple posters have to agree. (not that I expect a place without tech people to do this.)
The current system of creating a new thread, even if you know about it, just doesn’t have any way of bringing in the other posts automatically. And having the mods have to do is antithetical to Discourse’s attempt to have it be easy.
I will notice how, even in this post, I’ve veered off from the original topic to how the moderation can cause issues to proposing technical solutiosn that probably won’t work. And yet none of it feels like I “hijacked” anything.
But get enough of those who follow from me, and a hijack you have.
As a general rule, I’m happy to do this in my forums (Cafe, MPSIMS, IMHO, and i guess the quarantine zone.) Just DM me, and link the first post in the hijack. Or report the first post in the hijack, and @ me in your description of what you want done. I don’t guarantee I’ll agree with you, and i don’t guarantee I’ll be online right away. But I’m happy to review your request and I’ll probably do it.
I’m guilty of this, probably more than most others. I try to restrain myself. Take the thread on the circus peanuts as an example. @Odesio mentioned a store in Rockport, TX, where they bought some candy. As someone who goest to Rockport at least twice a week for the past 10 years for work, I was surprised that I didn’t know about the store they were referencing. It turns out that it is located less than 2 miles from my place of work, and was well worth the visit. I’m still not sure how I hadn’t learned about it sooner. But had I posted about that in the thread about the circus peanuts, it would have been off topic.
Conversations in real life have contexts, just like there are contexts by way of forum here.
In real life contexts can be a party or a business meeting to decide on specific strategic or operational issues.
The party is pretty much all hijack. The business meeting is, barring a few social pleasantries, preferably minimal hijacks. If the meeting is to decide on the compensation structure a conversation meandering to a long discussion of vacation plans and favorite breakfast foods is unappreciated and should to be shut down.
I referenced Kindergarten. Expected there: “Class let’s talk about butterflies. What have we learned so far?Jimmy, you have something to say?” “Daddy farts loud and mommy says he’s augusting.” Sarah pipes up “My Mom’s farts smell worse than Dad’s!”
As we grow up we should be a bit less Jimmy and Sarah.
This is real. These days at my agency, 99% of our meetings are on Teams. We have a combination of people chatting on microphone and chatting via text. Sending a message via text can be a useful way to make a point without interrupting someone. And often there are pauses to look at and address text messages during meetings, that’s part of how things work.
Sometimes though, there are jokes, and memes, and other things that may or may not be on topic. And they can threaten to derail the meeting. It’s exactly like this board. There’s a certain level of tolerance but it can be disruptive. Sometimes a joke makes a good point and eases tension, sometimes it’s disruptive. Sometimes a tangent brought up (via text or voice) can cause a side discussion that monopolizes the meeting, and then you can’t even finish the agenda.
Where a work meeting and a thread on this board are similar is that there is a point, a goal in having the discussion. And seemingly harmless banter can sabotage that goal. That’s why it can be necessary to avoid and police hijacks in both venues.
Some threads/categories on this board are loose and people can just talk about whatever. Just like a casual party or hangout in real life. Hijacks are the point. “Small talk” is basically just another way to describe unstructured conversation that meanders and goes where it goes without any real plan, rules, or agenda.
Just as a reminder, I know that a complaint about splitting topics is that it loses the continuity of the conversation. I’m noted in several threads I’ve moderated that a good discussion was flowing, but counter to the purpose of the thread. Sometimes I’ve split it off, others I stopped the off topic post but said if one of the participants wanted to start a New thread I’d be willing (it’s a bit of a chore) to move the appropriate posts to the new thread as well.
For myself, or one of the others, being able to do so is a factor of how much time and energy we might have at a specific moment, but the advantage of this option is one of the posters directly involved in the discussion gets to set the parameters and the title in the new thread, which IMHO can serve better to keep the sidetrack discussion on track without spawning it’s own hijacks.
Just a thought as to why it’s better for you folks to keep control of the conversation as much to yourselves as possible.