Thread derailment! Sound the alarms! Danger!

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I don't understand this obsession with topics going off track. Most of the time I think I'm well within the parameters of the topic. But even if I'm not, who cares? People are free to ignore the comments-- and move on with their lives.

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It's definitely selectively enforced, and ironically often used as a way to make difficult questions go away rather than keeping things on "topic". There's also the matter of this being an autism board, where tangents should be both expected and tolerated. Unless a post is completely out of left field or obvious spam, I think it should generally be allowed, as it's easy enough to ignore.

The weird thing is that I don't believe I was even close to being off topic or derailing the thread in the discussion about Alex Jones.

Buy hey, people have to get their shorts in a knot rather then ignoring a few sentences on a message board.

Yeah, I'd resent it less if it wasn't so frequently abused, it's very clearly more about shutting down particular lines of inquiry than any fiction about staying on topic. I have similar feelings about people having "their" threads locked when they go places they don't like, unless it's about them personally they shouldn't have that option, as this is a discussion board and discourse should generally be allowed to go where it may. It's particularly ridiculous in News and PPR, where no one is discussing personal matters of the type where it may make sense to lock a thread if it goes places the OP doesn't desire, it's just an abuse of the rules at that point.

I'm not a fan of derailment, if it's discussing a frivolous topic in a personal thread where someone is looking for support.

Other than that it's ok

Yeah, that's not what's being talked about here, I don't think anyone has any issues with the policy under those circumstances.

People don't really want to create a thread just for it to get derailed on to a completely different topic. It can be frustrating for the OP.

I was accused of derailing a thread last night when nothing could be further from the truth. I was pissed off and I'm still pissed off this morning. It's just f*****g ridiculous!

Who here likes snickerdoodles? Is there a better tasting cookie that has a funnier name?

Don't threads here often veer off course? I'm not sure what exactly equals thread derailment v/s casual bits of random conversation/information inserted into a thread (I lack the conversation/social skills to pick that crap apart...it's all the same to me), but I see this sort of thing happening a lot here. Like has been mentioned, I think it's not cool if it's in the haven or something (unless guided there by the OP), but beyond that, it seems generally accepted and pretty common here to me. I don't mind it. I know a lot of times someone will say one thing, and that reminds me of some other thing, so it's all relevant and related to me... I can understand why other people would say things in a thread that might not seem exactly related (to me anyway).

Oh, sorry you got accused of derailing a thread, OP. I was not aware of that until I went to post my reply and saw two new replies had been added. I hate it when something gets me upset in the evening and I wake up that way the next day. Meh. That sucks. I hope you can get to feeling better sooner than later.

Just best to stay away from discussing American politics. Actually I've been accused of things I wasn't doing and it wasn't even in any political threads.

Yeah, talking about American politics ain't the best thing to do on this board if you want to maintain your sanity. But I'll be fine.

The irony is that the member who accused me of thread derailment has done more than his share of derailing threads than I can count.

The main rule of this site is to shut up really, which it shouldn't be though because I feel people should have more freedom to speak their mind here as long as they're not personally attacking somebody or spreading biased hate towards a community.

There are contradicting rules here. Like we have PPR but we can't say anything unless it's 100% positive and everybody agrees with it. If it's something like "I don't feel strongly about this because..." then you're accused of being a disrespectful jerk with no empathy.

There is no valid reason to derail a thread when it is easier to start a separate thread on a new subject.

It makes it extremely difficult to talk about complex topics in depth when that happens. This is less of an issue in threads which are more lighthearted and fun.