Miscellaneous > The Lounge

Derailment

(1/5) > >>

Kintaro:
There has been a bit of discussion of derailment and a little editting along with it. We need to work out something that can be considered a little more legitimant regarding derailment. However what is considered legitimant is also debateable. Nonetheless there are better ways of handling derailments then deleting posts and things.

A thread derailing usually means that a discussion, or shall we call it a subdiscussion has happened in a topic that is not directly related to the actual topic itself. These have occured in forums for the longest time, and these have occured in usenet and mailinglists for a long time as well. This derailment is usually based on circumstances of the thread, or it happens more suttle in most cases with the topic slowly leading into another topic.

When a discussion does this I have witnessed one really good way of them sorting themselves out. Basically on a lot of forums and mailinglists, when the thread or discussion leads offtopic, or gets derailed they change the topic heading. For example on a mailinglist a discussion about pizza could lead to a discussion about cheese, and a person will realise this and change the subject line from "pizza" to "cheese (was pizza)", and it spawns another discussion. However this is not a mailinglist, so if a discussion about "Windows" lead to a lot of talk about "Linux" in it, the discussion could be renamed from "Windows" to "Windows and Linux". I think this is sensible, as moderation tactics like deletion and editing should only be used as a worst case scenario. In a worst case scenario a new thread could be started with the original posts moved in that direction.

Make sense?

Laukev7:
I also would like some guidelines concerning so-called 'useless' threads which take up space and contain no meaningful or entertaining debate, and lead to no constructive discussion.

Aloone_Jonez:
I agreee but if a Windows thread in the Windows section becomes a Windows and Linux thread should it be moved to a more general section like the lounge.

Also I don't know because I've never started a topic that's got binned but do the moderators tell the poster that their topic has been binned and why? I feel they should be sent a  private message or something and the same if their topic gets moved. I know they normally give a reason and this is more to help newbs.

Moveing post should also be an alternative to deleteing or binning the entire thread. For example if some starts a toplic that already exists and loads of people reply their posts shouldn't be deleted along with the thread they should be just moved into the existing thread.

I don't know what you could do about editing. Maybe each post could be saved in MS Word format because it always tracks the changes and both the editing and display pages could be MS Word AcitveX controls or something. :D

Kintaro:
Maybe each post could be saved in MS Word format because it always tracks the changes and both the editing and display pages could be MS Word AcitveX controls or something.

Or we could just use mediawiki to do the whole thing.

Calum:

--- Quote from: kintaro ---Nonetheless there are better ways of handling derailments then deleting posts and things.
--- End quote ---
thank you!
yes there are.

this board's habit of encouraging people to leave snippy remarks when they do delete entire posts is a bit redundant as well.



--- Quote ---A thread derailing usually means that a discussion, or shall we call it a subdiscussion has happened in a topic that is not directly related to the actual topic itself. These have occured in forums for the longest time, and these have occured in usenet and mailinglists for a long time as well. This derailment is usually based on circumstances of the thread, or it happens more suttle in most cases with the topic slowly leading into another topic.
--- End quote ---
in my opinion if a discussion's direction changes, this is the essence of discussion. it is only "derailment" if somebody has filled the thread with drivel when serious discussion is *still* going on there. if the original discussion has fizzled out, and other people have moved onto another topic, then what's the bloody problem?


--- Quote ---When a discussion does this I have witnessed one really good way of them sorting themselves out. Basically on a lot of forums and mailinglists, when the thread or discussion leads offtopic, or gets derailed they change the topic heading.
--- End quote ---
thank you thank you!!!
i really had lost hope that people could make sensible observations about this sort of thing here.

--- Quote ---For example on a mailinglist a discussion about pizza could lead to a discussion about cheese, and a person will realise this and change the subject line from "pizza" to "cheese (was pizza)", and it spawns another discussion. However this is not a mailinglist, so if a discussion about "Windows" lead to a lot of talk about "Linux" in it, the discussion could be renamed from "Windows" to "Windows and Linux". I think this is sensible, as moderation tactics like deletion and editing should only be used as a worst case scenario. In a worst case scenario a new thread could be started with the original posts moved in that direction.
--- End quote ---

in my opinion this solution is better than anything else i have heard from anybody at all ever since the board started up again.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page