NOTICE: Off topic Posting
Tuesday, April 29, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
And one thing that is making me really cranky is that people will make an intelligent post only to see it hijacked by people and turn it into something completely unrelated to what the original topic was about.
I've seen this trend growing lately and it is going to stop now. I don't care how long you've been around the community. If there is a conversation on say designing wallpapers and you turn it into a discussion about third party Photoshop filters, you stand the risk of losing your posting priviledges. If there is a post discussing the finer points of stock portfolios and you turn it into a tirade about Enron, you stand the risk of losing your posting access.
And that obviously goes for posts that are about somethign relevant that turn into cutesy quasi-private conversations between people inside of posts.
And if you want to discuss something, make a post. You can post about pretty much anything you want here in the sense that you can create your own thread. But don't hijack other people's threads. It's rude and it's unnecessary.
We will be adding a host of new forum features to help make having discussions easier to participate in over the long haul. But in the meantime, let's show respect to those who create threads by not immediately turning it into a tangential discussion.
And yes, obviously at some point in a long conversation you will have topic drift. But if you're on post 5 on a thread about HDTV standards, it's not cool to start posting about whether Burger King's Fries are better than McDonalds. Because 1) They're not and 2) it's off topic.
Reply #2 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:12 PM
Reply #3 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:15 PM
Reply #4 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:19 PM
Reply #5 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:20 PM
Reply #6 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:23 PM
Reply #7 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:23 PM
And for the record I have been guilty once or twice of everything I mentioned above.

Reply #8 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:25 PM
It's probably my fault that sparked this thread...effectively the Magazine article thread got diverted to a the topic of copyrights etc...was a pretty 'rapid' drift and no help to the original topic.
It WOULD have been better/more appropriate to take it to its own thread and leave the original on target.
My mistake.
That said, with the site actually being a 'private place' accessible to the public, it is not a matter of 'free speech' or inflammatory references to 'Nazi Germany', but merely an in-house policy to adhere to.
I'll do what I can to keep things on-track...

Reply #9 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:30 PM
Reply #10 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:31 PM
A cranky frogboy can't be good...K... Read it got it... think I'm safe.
I try to be good, but it's hard when you're a jabber jaws like me

Reply #11 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:31 PM
mooshoo readily awaits curious new buttons popping up around here...
Reply #12 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:33 PM
And having admins shepard and handle off-topic posts and thread-drifs is a common practice on many boards to prevent entropy. So far this place has been pretty lax in this area when compared to another board I particpate in.
I really wish this board had a few segregated areas, one for off-topic chatter, another for help, and so on.
Reply #13 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:34 PM
Reply #14 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:36 PM
But seriously, I agree with Frogboy.
Reply #16 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:39 PM
Fries is not the topic. We're gonna get'in trouble 
Reply #19 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:44 PM
Oh and by the way I agree on that other thing too......
Reply #20 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:50 PM

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Reply #1 Tuesday, April 29, 2003 7:11 PM
Is this a message board or is this Nazi Germany?
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