Reasons for the recent epidemic of locked threads

What's causing the level of friction and rage that leads to threadlocks?

I haven't seen an epidemic of threadlocks really, not compared to past events.

Though sometimes I think during a surfing session, Maddy just gets tired of tolerating the bullshit and talking to us about it in the first place, and just locks instead. Which I can empathize with, I don't have any real problem with that.

How many times do you expect to be told "This thread in in OTC. That means it needs to stay close to the original topic?" If you're taking part in a thread in OTC, I'm going to assume that you already know that. My original optimism that derailed threads in OTC can be re-railed has been destroyed. There have been far fewer cases where a thread re-rails after a warning than there have been where the warning serves only to create a pause, before the derail starts right back up.

edited 13th Apr '11 7:53:03 AM by Madrugada

Yeah, I have to agree with Mad here. Too often it seems like a discussion just goes permanently off the rails. I suppose there are some cases where I'd say a thread could still be saved, but then I'm not the mod.

So the real question is, has there been a sudden rise in off-topic threading? (I don't think so.)

Hopefully they get/got the message, if not; too sad.

To an extent I think it's both natural and completely unavoidable; a certain amount of topic drift is inherent in human communication, and so long as it's still related to the topic at hand and getting some form of productive debating done, I don't see a problem with it in and of itself. OTOH I can also see the point in the moderation policy for the sake of keeping things organized and avoiding junk content, and as far as all recently locked threads go I don't see how they could've dragged themselves back up to civil on-topic discourse.

Real pity about the unions thread, though. That one was created after I went to bed and locked before I got up this morning, so I missed a good chance to mine a rich subject. :(

Once a thread has been locked for going off subject, is it ok to start a new thread about the original subject?

It really depends on the subject and why it derailed.

In some cases, the opening post in a thread is inflammatory, in the way it's worded. In cases like that, it may be possible to start an new thread with a less aggressive OP and have it work.

In other cases, like the unions thread, it was one of the first replies that was unnecessarily inflammatory. Trying to start it again is unlikely to work, because that same poster is likely to dump the same load of gasoline on it, no matter how the OP is stated.

In still other cases, a thread derails because the people taking part have essentially run out of things to say on the topic, and they start talking about things that are only tangential to the topic. Those will usually die of attrition following a "Get back to the stated topic" warning. If you look through the list of old OTC conversations, you'll see that far more of them simply stopped getting posts than were locked.

And some get locked because they are about topics that seem to be such hot-button topics that having a civil conversation about them is nigh impossible.

In general, if you think that a topic that was locked can be salvaged, PM me and ask if you can try it again. Let me know what you plan to do differently, and why you think it it will work.

edited 13th Apr '11 10:20:14 AM by Madrugada

Madrugada I had a question for you. Since this is on-topic conversations and threads seem to derail rather commonly, would having a more vague and less constricted topic in the first place decrease the chances of derailing?

Also, most conversations seem to change naturally to different subjects. Like talking about A, which may lead to discussing B, which in turn may cause a discussion about C, and blah blah. I've been seeing threads more often lately that are created because of discussions that were getting off topic and needed their own thread, which is awesome. This should be way more common in the OTC. Having a link to the previous thread that inspired that one in the OP would be great as well.

Also also, there are only three locked threads lately, I wouldn't call this an "epidemic".

edited 13th Apr '11 10:54:11 AM by ViralLamb

I can't remember, does shit posting on the subject count as on topic?

Apparently not.

A case of being way to vague of a topic.

edited 13th Apr '11 11:07:37 AM by ViralLamb

Shitposting is not on-topic. The very definition of a shit-post is "a post that has no relevance or meaningful content".

Conversations drift; that's a simple fact of conversations. But when a conversation has drifted to a completely different subject from what it started out as, it's really become a different conversation among the same people. Look at it this way: If you and a group of friends were talking about where to grab some lunch, and McDonald's is mentioned, and someone else comments that the Happy Meal toys are from the new movie Rio, and then you start talking about the movie, and then it drifts to CGI animation in general, and then to 'Good CGI versus bad CGI' and from there to Avatar, if someone were to walk up and ask what you were talking about, would you still say "where to get lunch"?

Viral Lamb: It's really impossible to say; some topics derail because they were too narrow — there's only so much that can be said about them before the topic is exhausted. Others derail because they're too broad, like "Abortion: discuss".

I think I've said this before, but if I haven't, it's something that I should have: My rule of thumb is that if I can identify, (to within a very few posts) where the subject changed, I consider it a definite derail, rather than acceptable drift. If I can't, it's drift, and then the question of whether is it within "acceptable limits" of drift or not comes in. To deal with that, I look at it in terms of "If I were to Thread Hop this thread, are they still talking about pretty much the same thing or something closely enough related that I would be able to see the connection?" If the answer to that is "No" it's drifted too far. It's subjective, yes. But most moderating has heavy subjective aspects — it's part of the job description.

edited 13th Apr '11 12:13:30 PM by Madrugada

I guess the question that lingers in my mind is why all the persistant focus on keeping things on-topic?

I mean, naturally, if the topic is titled "Abortion: Discuss" (just recycling the topic that Mad used as an example) and someone threadhopped on and said "DURR HURR I EATS BOWLS OF FUTUSESS EVRY MORNING TO GRO BIGN STRNG AND THATS WHY I THNK ABORTIONZ ARE GUD LOLCOCKS DERP DERP", then, obviously it's not on-topic and that contributor should be locked out from that discussion. But if people are in a thread on abortion and the conversation drifts to abortion-related topics like religion, the definition of personhood, adoption, gender rights, taxation and government intervention, etc. I think that those are all valid topics that relate to the topic of abortion.

Maybe if we allowed the creator of a thread to change the thread title? That way if the discussion yaws to another point entirely, they can change it to reflect the current shift in conversation. I only say this because I find it hard to have a conversation locked and then get all the people that were involved in the discussion to reconvene at the same point they left off in the previous locked discussion.

So, in short, I think that thread creators should be allowed to change thread titles, related conversational drift and mutation should be allowed, and people should receive time based and thread specific bans for rudeness, willful ignorance and making an effort to be offtopic or derailing, or just plain shitposting.

The persistent concentration on keeping threads on topic may be because the sub-forum is called "On Topic Conversations". That's its USP. I appreciate a bit of drift is inevitable, but I appreciate the effort to keep a conversation going on one topic, if it's serious enough to warrant it.

Is there a forum on which to discuss IRL stuff without a need for it to be on-topic?

Yack Fest.

Yack Fest. Old Folks Home. The Media subforums. IJAM. They all have different flavors of interaction between the posters who frequent them — poke around and then pick the one that suits the topic and the kind of discussion you want the best.

There have been far fewer cases where a thread re-rails after a warning than there have been where the warning serves only to create a pause, before the derail starts right back up.

I notice there are times when you don't intervene that topics de- and rerail. For example, the prejudices thread. (Granted, that's not one of the big-ish scale examples, but even so...) Just saying.

I don't read every OTC thread. I can't — there isn't enough time. Just like anywhere else on the forums, if you think a thread needs mod attention, use the Holler button, and then use the comment box it generates to say what the problem is.

Speaking of which, I wish for once I would see a post before it gets thumped, but I'm just curious like that.

Yeah, I always wonder what was said that caused the post to be removed. Even moreso if there are multiple removals in a row.

It's just curiosity, though (plus, more often than not, it's fairly simple to figure out what was said if the next post responds to it).

edited 13th Apr '11 4:16:22 PM by Malph

Well, they're usually thump'd for a reason and to keep them unthump'd will usually further encourage derails or flames.

Perhaps we should just have a greater emphasis on making new topics for branch offs of a topic?

Never mind. I am a fool.

edited 13th Apr '11 4:13:55 PM by TheDeadMansLife

I wish Yack Fest didn't suck so bad, I might actually go there sometimes.

Unfortunately there isn't really a medium, OTC is sticking to the topic, and Yack Fest has no clue what's going on. There's not really a "Stay on topic, branch out on topics where it's meaningful to do so" forum.