I keep seeing this happen, and as I am still relatively new to the site I don't know if this is a long-term thing or a realtively new phenomenon. It seems to be especially vexing in "Controversial Issues". Someone will post a hot topic, the first few responses will be excellent and thought-provoking, and then someone will slide off the track, digress far afield, and end up taking about the time they met Peter Lemongello. The next three posts will be about Peter Lemongello, or some other equally awful topic from out of the blue, blue sky, and the original thread dies an ignominious and awful death, never to be resurrected.

On other threads, things start off perfectly swimmingly, and then eventually degenerate into an orgy of first-person pronouning. The subject could be anything from smallpox to the legalization of pot... no matter what it is, someone will always come in with a long post about they don't know much about smallpox, but they had chicken pox as a kid and mom made them Ovaltine and they got to stay up late and watch Johnny Carson and that night the nut lady was on, and also Joan Embry from the San Diego zoo, and they always loved Joan Embry, etc. etc.

Is this a bit vexing? I for one am at a loss to figure out what the FTA Anonymous thread is about now, though it seems to concern itself with tea and aspirin and the consumption of various foodstuffs. The EXCELLENT thread about Anti-American Attitudes in Controversial Issues has veered off into the realm of wrestling, which is a sort of Pythonesque twist to things, though here I think it is a bit of mad waggery from Kerala, India that has taken it there.

Glass houses dept: I myself have been accused of this sort of thing, as I responded to what I thought to be a rather silly post about (among other things) the purported fakeness of science with a series of ridiculous quasi-disquisitions about (among other things) antibiotics, the germ theory of disease, wrestling and bad toupees. So if you want to bash me about the head on this count as a prime offender, please feel free to do so, though I think somtimes a determinedly demented reply can be quite responsive to a palpably crackbrained post.

Has anyone else noticed this trend, or, more to the point, noticed it recurring with ever greater frequency over the last few weeks?

Yes, I can say that this is fairly prevalent in the forums. I can also say (from experience) that it has always been this way. I just took it for granted that this is the way things worked. How many of the threads started in the Welcome Centre have ended up being discussions on Vegemite or Tim Tams?

I never really saw it as a bad thing or a good thing, just a......thing, I suppose. But then, this is also indicative of most of the conversations that I have in my day to day life. I blame it on my own short attention span...

I don't think the tendency is any more marked than it ever was.

Surely it's just the natural tendency of conversation. If a few people get together, somebody will start the conversation, and after a few minutes the topic changes. You start by discussing President Bush's foreign policy, but within a quarter of an hour you've somehow got on to the uselessness of the England cricket XI, and on the way you've discussed the ethics of cloning and the inadequacies of public transport. And if, once the topic has altered, you think of something to say on the original topic, you think you'd be a bit of a bore if you went back to it.

In fact, compared to a typical conversation, I think people stay "on topic" pretty well in the forums.

It is very natural for a conversation to veer off course from time to time.

Better than with conversations in real-time face to face, in the forums if you want to get back to the original topic it is very easy to just quote from where you want to pick up from and start the ball rolling again.

Especially when it isn't done intentionally, I can't say the hijacking agitates me. Many times, it adds a little spice to the conversation and as I said before, it is very easy to get back on track if you want.

Compared to some other BBs I go to, FT seems to stay on-topic fairly well. And sometimes the 'hijackings' are more interesting that the original topic.

I'm only very new myself but I, too, have noticed it happening. You find what looks like a post with potential and after scanning through many lengthy replies suddenly find that it's not the original topic anymore and you don't want to have a say.

It does happen all the time outside the forum as well. I remember this one time I was chatting with Peter Lemongello...

But as long as you keep that acerbic tongue wagging when justified, Cool, I have no problem. Is that "evil" or just "bad"?

Who the heck is Peter Lamongello??

Sorry, Cool. Is it wrong to go off on a tangent in a thread about going off on tangents?

I don't find it too vexing... sometimes it's quite funny!

That is the question I want to ask to, LadyC! Who the heck is he?

I agree with everyone, it just happens in the course of conversation to get off topic, but it is also easy to get back on topic if you have somethng you want or need to say. Most of the time, what gets the ball rolling is something that is off topic, but relates to the topic and it leads from there. I am as guilty as anyone for starting the "veer". It isn't too annoying to me, unless someone jumps in with something so off topic (and you can tell it is intentionally done) as to get everyone confused. We are fortunate here, in that very few people have ever done this. I can only think of a couple cases.

It's not perfect, coolupway! But it's home! I like it here, warts and all! I've been around for about a year at FT, and sometimes I do notice a "veering" from the straight and narrow, but I put it down to just plain "folks", and as has been stated here above me, as goes life, so go the forums. And it isn't difficult to redirect! Just a little slice of life here...and I like it!

Ahh, Peter Lemongello. Aside from the fact that he sounds like an American dessert company advertising character, he is something of a legend in the self-promotion and self-management stakes.

Peter was a singer in the late 60s/70s in the US. He actually got his start in the business at the Don Ho show in Hawaii while on a week's R&R from the army. He was in the audience and responded to a requested for anyone who wanted to get up and sing instead of the person who was singing. The reqction was good and he found himself with a regular gig on the Don Ho Show.

From there things took off. He got a spot at the "Living Room" in Manhattan and from there opened for Don Rickles for 2 weeks at the "Copacabana". He was then signed with Columbia/CBS and did talk shows all over the place.

Music was changing at the time, though. Within about 5 years everything was back to scratch again. Even long-time stayers like Sammy Davis Jr had trouble getting recording gigs. So Peter took it upon himself to sell himself.

He organised his own record, financed it through selling shares and set up a huge "media blitz" of an andvertising campaign. At one point he was bombarding the residents of New York, LA and Las Vegas with over 100 TV ads per week. He was the first person in US history to sell in excess of 1 million albums through TV advertising.

The success and how he achieved it brought him a lot of attention. He was in all the major newspapers including the front page of the Wall Street Journal. He was even Cosmo Magazine's Bachelor of the Month.

I think that pretty much sums it up. Now I am taking this thread to Cuba. If you don't fly it there now I will execute one passenger every hour until you do.

Jim

Speaking of Cuba, did you know that the United States essentially administered the island for several decades following the Spanish-American War? I believe that that war was the essential turning point in the history of the United States. From that point on, America developed into a world power, willing to flex its muscles overseas in a way previously unprecidented. Of course there was the Monroe Doctrine, and Manifest Destiny had its implications in the Pacific, but actually holding land overseas was not the prior policy of the U.S. government.

What are your thoughts on this issue folks? Should the U.S. have occupied the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Cuba following that fateful late 19th-century war, or was this a mistaken geopolitical decision of the hawkish politicos who had taken control of the executive branch during the latter 1890s?

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What are your thoughts on this issue folks? Should the U.S. have occupied the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Cuba following that fateful late 19th-century war, or was this a mistaken geopolitical decision of the hawkish politicos who had taken control of the executive branch during the latter 1890s?

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Forget that! Let's get back to those flexing muscles...... Woo hoo!

Yes veering off topic does happen quite a bit. I think it is just the way we'd converse face to face, which is a good thing I think. It makes the place friendly. You can sort of get to know a person by the off topic remarks they make.

Usually, opinions and conversation don't go off topic for long anyway. Someone always brings it back on course a few posts down the line. You can ease it back on topic yourself if desired by making a relevant post.

Hmmm, actually I find this the beauty of it all, and I really prefer it to, well, stern admonitions of "get back on topic!"
Which I know no one here would ever dream of, of course.

Like the analogy of coloring books, here you are given a model of some horrid clown's face, and then forced to color the exact same thing next to it! If you botch up the coloring within the lines, you are branded as an outcast at two years old, your parents pointed out on the street, people make crosses as they pass in front of your home and make their children cover their eyes.
(I hear a hush and a few people fainting, including my mother who would have her grandchildren airlifted if she could after hearing that one!)

Whereas for me,I used to say that if my children did color things within the lines at two years old, I'd be concerned about their sanity, rather than the French approach that gives them a report card and sternly says, "colors outside of the lines!"
And coloring clowns like that, well, it's almost against my religion. Indie Queen knows that already, as the "Fears of a Clown" thread was one of the best we ever had in here, right?

That sufficient for a highjacking job?
Thought so.

It does happen, in Current Events and Controversial Issues we try to get back on track, normally with a post by me asking people to stay on topic, however, recently I haven't been quite so 'heavy-handed', it is obviously time that I went back to waving my stick.

I am not so sure that it is so important in some forums.

Speaking of coloring, I got a new box of crayons for Christmas! Isn't that cool? 31 years old, and I still love to color. My nieces like to color with me, so my other boxes of crayons were getting rather shabby from so much use. I asked for and got the Crayola 100th Anniversary Edition box.

But that's enough about me.

Coolupway, I'm afraid that I must've missed one or two of the threads you've taken such a perceptive jab at, but give me a little time on the FT search engine and I'll get back to you. I'm not bad at reading between the lines though, and it does make a pleasant change to hear someone tell it as it is. However, as you're obviously not into group hugs or backslapping, perhaps a simple wink will do!!!

Cool, you are right. Some threads seem to go off on tangets. I think that is human nature. Whether one is standing around the kitchen table, around the bar, or visiting over the fence, conversations grow all by themselves. I remember when.... wait, wait. Back on topic. It's easy to get off topic.

I find that there are responses I would like to make to threads in CI but by the time I get through reading to the end, it is no where close to the starting topic.

So, to put all my replies/answers to all the threads I would like to respond to: Yes, yes, no, yes, no, no and yes.

We think alot alike June, my answers are yes, yes, maybe, yes,no, no and yes. I feel the same way about some of those threads, but I just go ahead and jump back in with some of my responses. I figure if I am back on topic and no one else wants to be, they can disregard what I have just said and continue on with what they are saying.

We never did get back to those flexing muscles, did we?

Ok coolupway...I've hit the search engine and boy did I get linked to some wierd ones!! Yep...there's some mindless drivel out there!! Permit me to point out that you omitted mentioning a thread about a test post called Emily who apparently runs off with a fence post called Freddie... wooden you just know that would happen?? Hands up anyone brave enough to confess that they have any idea what that nonsensical thread was all about.

Strangely enough, only the chosen few here seem to be consistently told that their posts are irritating. I guess it's a case of 'one man's mindless drivel is another man's brain food'.

Thank goodness we have the choice to ignore some threads altogether.

By the way, about the 'first-person pronouning' * * *yawn* * * ... do you want nominations on a postcard??

What?? You didn't want to tune in EVERY day to the Emily Test Post thread to see what was going to happen next?? The rivalry between the posters?? The jealously emerging over WHO would have little Emily staying with them the longest?? The activities planned for her???

Really now....how can you call that nonsense???

I nominate myself, no problem.
Yet, funny how most people don't tend to mind this and in fact, enjoy it? Within bounds of course.

The most common analogy we had here once is that this place resembles a family gathering, where people get together and discuss things, sometimes in a most animated fashion, several groups form, some younger folks form their own group to talk about what they like, some people get together and crack jokes...
Guess I, ooops, actually it seems to be most of us here in this thread, we don't mind a bit of conversation that resembles conversation in real life...this isn't after all a structured debate, is it?

There is a great deal of tolerance here normally. And as you've just said Izzi, we don't have to read anything we don't wish to.

The tradition established here, long long before my time, was occasional forays into making a test post go for about 500 threads, or similar things...I don't think this has changed.
However if the incursion into CI of very very off topic things happens, it might be more like someone changing the subject quickly with a "Did you see those Lakers?" in real life.
Or, "You really must give your recipe for that pie." instead of discussing the death penalty or what have you.

Art imitates life?

I think "thread hijacking" is more a result of the normal dynamics of human conversation than a subversive attempt to change the subject. It's what happens in normal conversation. I agree with Tabby Tom and Ms Batt - I think we do a pretty good job of staying on track most of the time.

The requirement to stay on the topic might be necessary in a setting such as a high school class-room, but I don't think it's appropriate in a forum.

I think some people have overlooked the fact that we all have a choice here. Any forum participant can choose to stay on topic or go off on a tangent. Others may ignore the tangent or run with it if it is interesting (as they often are). Anyone can get the thread back on track if they wish to.

Or you can ignore the thread entirely if it is not of interest to you. Admittedly there is some drivel but it doesn't last unless someone wants to respond to it. And who decides what is drivel and what isn't? - we all do! The forums are what we make them.

I love posts with personal information that tell me a little about the person at the other end, especially if it is a regular forum participant. The forums would be a very boring place if everyone refrained from using the "first person pronoun". Why would anyone want to spend time corresponding with people from all over the world and yet not want to know anything about them?

Obviously a couple of our forum participants are not "people" persons. I am glad most of the people here are warm, friendly people, who tolerate a bit of drivel and digression.

If I might just quote from the guidelines stipulated in the Welcome Centre and addressed, believe it or not, to the younger members who visit this little haven.

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Most of FunTrivia's members are adults. They come here for adult conversation. ..... We expect participators in these forums to act like adults.

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I haven't overlooked the next bit which goes on to say "That doesn't mean always be serious, however!", and yes ... I enjoy a little frivolity as much as the next person.

I would remind all concerned of the workings of Gresham's Law, which is to the effect that the bad currency drives out the good. If it can be extrapolated to this situation, and I would argue that it can, it seems to suggest that we should at thge least consider the issue in some detail here.

As I stated I am relatively new to the site. In chatting with others on the site, and also in the course of reviewing old threads, my attention has been drawn to a number of interesting posts obviously crafted by informed and thoughtful people. Unfortunately some of these people are not with us at FT any more. Having not chatted with them personally, I cannot state definitively why they drifted away, although there has been more that a little speculation that the sense of a sinking common denominator may have had something to do with at least a few of the defections.

I know that a number of people put a good deal of themselves into these threads and posts and I think this is marvelous. As I said, Chelseabelle's thread on Anti-American Attitudes gave me some of the best reading I've come across in months. Most of the posts, including some with which I disagreed quite strongly, were nonetheless reasoned and thoughtful.
And some of the posts did diverge a bit... but only a bit! Some talked about anti-American attitudes within the US. Some talked about attitudes toward the Bali attacks and Australia. This is at least arguably within the ambit of the original discussion. Until the very end, (thankfully) no one popped up with a post about Tootsie Rolls or hula hoops or their favorite Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I think a very small minority of people on the site post on threads about the subject matter of which they know extremely little. I hesitate to call it "spamming" because I think that overused term is harsh in this context, but I think that however one wishes to denominate the practice, it does exist, and I would suggest that its logical outcome is a prompt end to meaningful discussions and threads. As such, I've seen very interesting threads about, say, the sociology of a particular European country degenerate rather quickly into a lot of silliness about Santa Claus. I always bring up the Middle East threads with a sort of nameless dread that some earnest political discussion will be brought to an abrupt end by someone mentioning that they just had felafel for the first time, and boy was it good, and by the way, did you know that Danny Thomas was Lebanese, etc. etc.

Call me elitist and even misanthropic if you will, but I think there is a bright line dividing the inane from the meaningful. I think there is also a quite palpable divide between an interesting disquisition on a side issue and a no-segue quantum leap into some totally foreign subject. Not to put too fine a point on it I think people should know enough to refrain from entering a discussion to which they cannot add a meaningful, relevant or at least humorous insight.

I was a constant participant in multiplayer in the late summer and early fall, when we had a number of wonderful and interesting people popping up there. Then after a bit, a bunch of pre-teens came in and started in with a lot of "ARE U MY FREIND" and "MY BOYFREIND IS GOOD AT SEX" nonsense. Guess what happened? Everyone split! Aggi, who was universally loved in Multi, high-tailed it out of there so quickly no one even knew what happened.. and then a number of others followed. To my knowledge most of them haven't come back. The last time I looked in, only those long-suffering stalwarts Reap and Ette were still around from that original crowd. We used to have 14-15 people on at a time; last time I checked in I think there were about four.

Am I being a Cassandra? Perhaps. I don't really know. It does seem to me that, questions of quality aside, the level of participation in the fora has fallen off quite a bit when in fact one might expect it to rise during these months, replete as they are with holidays and (at least in the N. Hemisphere), rotten weather.

I hope I am wrong about all or at least most of this.