Keeping the dialog alive

Bob - I'm going to take a chance and respond online.  You make a good point and it's one that many of us, myself especially are guilty of.  And I like you mean well, but can get carried away with some aspect of the original thread.  Fortunately for us, the vast majority of forum participants are good natured and cut us the slack that we need.

 

Art

Bob,

   Don't sweat the small stuff buddy, enjoy your self and participate as you see fit.

Read the quote at the end of everyone of my posts and live by it.

PCRR/Dave

Most people on the Forum are understanding about this. I would not get overly concerned.

Worse than that, IMHO, is an answer that doesn't just stray, but doesn't address the topic at all.  OOPS, didn't mean to stray away from your original topic.

All is forgiven.  Repent sinner, and be cleansed! 

and once again, it's not about the trains.

keep on training and keep on making new friends.

 

"Hijacking" a thread is something that happens every once in a while. It's not necessarily bad, it's natural result of a wide-ranging discussion.

 

I have the ability now to "Fork" a post into a new thread. What that means is that if someone makes a posts within a thread that is only distantly related to the topic which the OP wrote about, I can fork that post out of the thread and into an all-new new thread. However, I will need you folks to alert me to these situations.

 

If a thread is forked, you will see a notice about it at the bottom of the post, as you see in this post. I purposely forked this post into a new thread, just so you can see what it looks like.

 

If you see a post that goes off in a direction that you think might be worthy of a thread all its own, use the alert icon () to let us know about it. I cannot read anywhere near enough of the posts made here to find these situations on my own. I'll need your help.

Well, it looks like I dodged a bullet here.  Thanks Rich.  

When posting on this forum, you are conversing with friends. Oftentimes a conversation will lead to other topics. It's how our brain works. No harm, no foul, no problem. Just be careful you don't get Forked by Rich. 

All this time I thought the triangle at the bottom was the bad boy alert button.

Based on many other forums in many other subjects its natural for a discussion to drift off the original subject for one or two posts.  More than that, it should be forked into its own topic.   Usually, people will bring the discussion back to the original topic and it's never bothered me unless everyone is discussing the forked topic more than the original.

 

The "off topic" posts in one thread of mine stopped when I asked that the thread return to its original topic.  Also, I found the "edit" function useful when I've posted "off topic," usually when replies became acutely personal and unrelated to the thread's topic.

 

An opportunity for self-correction would be the inclusion of a "Preview Post" feature in addition to the "Cancel/Submit Reply" choices currently available.  Perhaps Hoop La and Rich could include a "Preview Post" alternative.

 

  

I think everyone does this at one time or another, I don't think they do it intentionally to derail a thread. It is as Rich says above, they just take a course of their own sometimes. Looks like he also has a good solution to the problem now.

 

Beyond common courtesy and common sense, I don't think anyone owes the forum any special regard in this respect.  I often start a new thread, inspired by a current one, mostly so people who see the title know its a slightly different topic/direction.  But conversations diverge, too, so it does not bother me unless someone is deliberately steering a thread back to an unpopular perspective, etc. 

It doesn't bother me if some of the posts stray a little off topic and I don't consider it hijacking. As you say it's just keeping the dialog alive. I think the people who complain about it, probably complain when their threads get bounced off the front page too.

I think the important thing here to remember is that we are trying to keep conversations on the forum train / hobby related.  If you feel you need to go off topic to the point that it has nothing to do with the focus of this forum, then you need to use personal email.  Rich has worked very hard to keep the forum focused on what it is all about and too many times off topic subjects tend to stray into negative discussions which isn't something we want to promote.  The success of this forum and how it got to become the largest of its kind on the internet is because of the concerted effort of the vast majority of the membership along with the OGR Principles to keep us all on track..  There are plenty of examples of forums on the internet that allow one to discuss topics other than what OGR focuses on...

 

Alan

 

 

A fork in the road is usually preferable to an axe to the thread.  (OR)

An axe to a thread oft-times ruins the entire garment.