Dealing with Off Topic posts or not

[zappaDPJ]

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[bennylava]

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Why does this post say "To view this content we need you to accept third party cookies"?

Before I can see/do anything. I have never seen this before in a post. In other places of course, but never in someone's post.

 

[zappaDPJ]

Why does this post say "To view this content we need you to accept third party cookies"?

It's because your browser has blocked third party cookies for this site and the post contains embedded content. I've had the exact same thing happen once here and if I recall correctly it was directly after an update was applied.

 

[Arnox]

Current policy for us as a free-speech-based forum is to not touch off-topic posts or even say anything about them whatsoever. As people have said earlier in this thread, normal conversations may gradually and naturally shift to other things, and it's a mistake, both in terms of community handling and in terms of generating forum content, to butt in and yell at users about off-topic posting. If anyone wants to talk about the original topic again, they can always come in and say anything at any time.

We DO, however, have a rule against obnoxious thread derailments where someone comes in and posts something that goes completely against the natural conversation flow and has nothing to do with the original topic.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Current policy for us as a free-speech-based forum

We DO, however, have a rule against obnoxious thread derailments where someone comes in and posts something that goes completely against the natural conversation flow and has nothing to do with the original topic.

So it's free speech until it isn't?

 

[Arnox]

So it's free speech until it isn't?

Free speech does not necessarily mean anarchy.

Q: Well, if you restrict users’ freedom to post even just a little bit, are you really the free speech forum you claim to be?

A: The whole point of freedom of speech is to allow for as much open discourse and sharing of ideas as possible. And it’s a little hard to share ideas or even basically communicate when someone is spamming nasty pictures all over the forum. Thus, there must be limits of SOME kind. If there isn’t then it just devolves into a zoo with monkeys flinging poo at each other. Also, to use freedom as effectively as possible requires taking responsibility, not brushing it off. This is something that is not talked about nearly as often as it should be. Nowadays, people in the United States are becoming alarmingly comfortable with not doing the researching and critical thinking that freedom requires, but I digress a little there.

 

[bennylava]

So it's free speech until it isn't?

The way I handle it, and the way the U.S constitution handles it, is that you have 99.9% free speech. Obviously there's some things you could say that would cause a lot of problems for yourself and others. Not a great idea to have that plastered all over your forum.

 

[Suzanne O]

If a thread has been derailed i'd have a "thread hell" section where all the awful and derailed posts go to.

 

[FTL]

Just wondering what people do when a thread gets (too many?) off topic posts.

Saw this in the thread suggestions so figured I'd dive in as it's something that's important to me.

On my forum, I have a policy of not being too strict on staying "on topic". Conversations in person naturally ebb and flow and drift, especially drift, so as long as the general conversation has some bearing on the topic I'm good with it. Even if it drifts completely off it for a while that's ok too and I may gently nudge it back towards the topic depending on the exact circumstances like what the topic is about, for example. If it's a very casual subject, then it really doesn't matter if it goes off at some tangent. If it's about something topical and serious, then I'd gently steer it back after a while, if necessary and so on.

Notice how I stress the gentle touch here? I've been on at least one forum where the mods got quite authoritarian about "staying on topic!" They would often use that as an excuse to start handing out warnings and points when myself or others were getting trolled and pushed back, on the pretext that we broke the rules for staying on topic and about being "nice" to other members, ie total gaslighting, victim blaming. Absolutely hated it, so I eventually left that damned forum, vowed never to do that to my members and it's worked out very well. There's a nice, relaxed atmosphere over at NerdZone, which has been my aim from the start.

 

[MapleOne]

I undermoderate instead of overmoderate

You cannot control conversation, you will just alienate users with overmoderation.

I might comment underneath and redirect the topic by posting relative information to the original post stating...

and back on topic

Saw this in the thread suggestions so figured I'd dive in as it's something that's important to me.

On my forum, I have a policy of not being too strict on staying "on topic". Conversations in person naturally ebb and flow and drift, especially drift, so as long as the general conversation has some bearing on the topic I'm good with it. Even if it drifts completely off it for a while that's ok too and I may gently nudge it back towards the topic depending on the exact circumstances like what the topic is about, for example. If it's a very casual subject, then it really doesn't matter if it goes off at some tangent. If it's about something topical and serious, then I'd gently steer it back after a while, if necessary and so on.

Notice how I stress the gentle touch here? I've been on at least one forum where the mods got quite authoritarian about "staying on topic!" They would often use that as an excuse to start handing out warnings and points when myself or others were getting trolled and pushed back, on the pretext that we broke the rules for staying on topic and about being "nice" to other members, ie total gaslighting, victim blaming. Absolutely hated it, so I eventually left that damned forum, vowed never to do that to my members and it's worked out very well. There's a nice, relaxed atmosphere over at NerdZone, which has been my aim from the start.

Looks like we have a similar approach, I took it to the next level, when you hit report on my forum it says...



Instead of REPORT the link says "Call Guide"

Instead of rules we call them Guidelines

Instead of mods we call them guides

We did that since day one since before other places started using Guides.

See it work at dn(dot)ca

 

[smallwheels]

Instead of REPORT the link says "Call Guide"
Instead of rules we call them Guidelines
Instead of mods we call them guides

That's an amazing idea to create a friendly forum culture!

 

[Seeker-Smith]

I’m more interested in what happens when a OT post triggers a whole new discussion that goes off at a tangent.

I more often than not moderate and start a new thread.
That’s really the only moderation we do.

 

[MapleOne]

I more often than not moderate and start a new thread.
That’s really the only moderation we do.

I have a forum called HUSHED

1. It does not index on google.
2. Guests cannot read there.
3. It does not display in the side widgets.
4. Thread owners can request the topic be moved there if it gets out of hand.

5. You can take it to the next step by only allowing members with 100+ posts to see it, basically eliminating any issues with newbies seeing topics that are marked as controversial.

 

[MapleOne]

One of the other things our board has is only the first 6 posts are visible and you have to register to read more.

So any augmentative posts mostly stay off indexing anyways.

I find it really keeps the peace, we rarely if ever have to moderate.

 

[Wildcat Media]

On my forum, I have a policy of not being too strict on staying "on topic". Conversations in person naturally ebb and flow and drift, especially drift, so as long as the general conversation has some bearing on the topic I'm good with it. Even if it drifts completely off it for a while that's ok too and I may gently nudge it back towards the topic depending on the exact circumstances like what the topic is about, for example. If it's a very casual subject, then it really doesn't matter if it goes off at some tangent. If it's about something topical and serious, then I'd gently steer it back after a while, if necessary and so on.

We've mostly done this, although if an off-topic portion of a thread takes on a life of its own, we'll split them off to a new thread. And members like this as now it's officially a new topic to talk about, and it gets a lot more activity.

I probably mentioned it earlier in this thread, but off-topic is not available to guest visitors--only for logged in members after they've had a few posts (we publicly don't say how many), as it's one less spam target.

 

[MapleOne]

I probably mentioned it earlier in this thread, but off-topic is not available to guest visitors--only for logged in members after they've had a few posts (we publicly don't say how many), as it's one less spam target.

I like that

The other thing we did is we removed all reactions and only kept like, you can verbalize a dislike but there is no reaction for it because on some forums I am a member on whenever someone gets dislike they go off on a tangent and dislike all the posts of the guy that dared dislike one of their posts.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I like that

The other thing we did is we removed all reactions and only kept like, you can verbalize a dislike but there is no reaction for it because on some forums I am a member on whenever someone gets dislike they go off on a tangent and dislike all the posts of the guy that dared dislike one of their posts.

I've wanted to use a "dislike" reaction, but I would only do it if I could disable listing the members along with the reactions. (For us, a count of each reaction vs. a list of members would be more helpful.) But this is such a low priority that I don't even think about it.

 

[MapleOne]

I've wanted to use a "dislike" reaction

Trust me, it creates more problems than it's worth

 

[smallwheels]

I’m more interested in what happens when a OT post triggers a whole new discussion that goes off at a tangent.

I more often than not moderate and start a new thread.
That’s really the only moderation we do.

At my forum it depends. We do have in general a pretty strict "stay-on-topic" culture. This is very well perceived, as people say information density is very high, the forum is very useful and when you search for information you don't have do wade through pages over pages of off topic within a given thread (in opposite to many other forums). So we keep it that way most of the time. If a discussion goes off topic there is usually a polite hint given first and if that does not have effect a more obvious one. If a forum member is still not stopping massive off topic-posting in this thread he or she may get a (temporary) thread ban. All that does happen, but the later two only rarely.
More often I split off a topic into a dedicated thread early, whenever it seems to make sense and the topic seems of enough interest for more than a couple of posts. This way discussion is not interrupted and if you split up the topics early enuogh it is fast, easy and flawlessly.

In the less technical parts of our forum we are less strict regarding off topic. Possibly still stricter than many other forums are in general, but way less than in the technical forums. Works pretty well and is not only accepted but requested: We tried to loosen the off topic rules a bit as an experiment and this was not well perceived - people requested going back to the old style, even those who had complained about being too strict before.

The only issue we have is with new forum members that have been members in other forums for years. Most of the time they are used to borderless off-topic-posting and sometimes some unwilling to change that. Which then may sometimes lead to conflicts, in rare cases even harsh rage posts and rage leaving of the forum.