Off topic comments - how to deal with them?

[musicales]

I have a busy industry-specific forum with lots of useful on-topic discussion and quite a tight community. The trouble is there is quite a culture of threads suddenly changing direction mid-flow, which dilutes the value of the thread.

How do I deal with these off-topic posts within a thread , without destroying the delicated balance and friendliness of the site? Should I let things stay as they are or should I try to encourage staying on-topic?

[luckychucky]

Do what WebMasterWorld does.
Have a catch-all foo - blather - irrelavancy - fun - comminuty - rant+rave category or two. Or three. Redirect all off topic threads there.

[musicales]

luckychucky - it's the off-topic posts that occur mid-thread that cause the problem - eg a thread about green widgets and someone on post 5 in the thread says "hey, speaking of green, what do you think of green monkeys" and send the thread totally off the original topic. I'm not sure how WW deals with that. Do they just remove it to foo as a 'new topic' and sticky the owner? In many cases that wouldn't work, as the post would pick up something mentioned in the thread and run with it somewhere else, so to make it the start of a new topic would not make sense.

[rogerd]

Musicales, it's human nature to cause conversations to shift focus. If you had a few buddies sitting around the table discussing a topic, how long do you think you would go before the conversation turned in a different direction? Still, there's a great benefit to having focused discussions, particularly if you value a good archive of past discussions.

I think OT comments come in several flavors. First, sometimes people will post a question or comment in a thread that is unrelated or barely related to what has gone before. Often this is a new poster who hasn't quite figured things out yet. So, in a discussion about "Polishing Widgets", someone will come out of nowhere to ask, "What's my 1955 silver-plated commemorative widget worth?" These, IMO, are best split off or deleted with a note to the poster suggesting the proper way of getting this question answered. Ideally, you are both fixing the problem and training the poster.

The second kind of diversions are locked in a little more tightly - they build on the previous discussion, but don't really relate to the original post. If these are minor, i.e., don't spawn a host of replies, it's often easiest to ignore them. Of course, they can also lead to a hijacking of the thread - if this seems likely, splitting or deletion can also be used.

(Threaded discussion forums acknowledge the possibility of divergence and allow for it by letting multiple sub-threads emerge.)

If you must moderate OT posts, explain to the poster why you are doing so, e.g., courtesy to the member who started the thread, the desire to have well-focused archives for future reference, etc. The majority of forums pay no heed to OT comments, so posters new to your forum may need some gentle guidance.

[Teknorat]

A simple request that the thread get back on track usually works. The WW way is to simply delete all the off topic comments which works even better.

[Leosghost]

restrict the number of times I can post in any one thread ;)?

[vkaryl]

Don't know about that one, Leo. That would artificially restrict you or anyone else who has information that needs to be posted in a thread over a course of time - poster A might have a question which you may help to answer; but then posters B, L, and Z have other issues, and you need to post a total of 12 times in that same thread, but you're limited to 10 total; so then you have to start a new thread and apologize to L and Z because the forum software limits your posts in a thread.... which truthfully is NOT particularly professional!

[rogerd]

Teknorat has a good point about jawboning the thread back on topic. I've found I can often do this by posting a "stopper" answer to the OT diversion and turning the conversation back to the point. If you can pull it off, this approach keeps everyone happy - the thread stays mostly on track, and the OT poster gets an answer without having to be moderated.

[vkaryl]

That's very true, rogerd.... most "civilized" folks CAN take a gentle hint-and-nudge....

[rogerd]

Depending on your audience, though, I'd say about a third won't "get it". In real life you'll meet people who are lacking in social skills and are unable to pick up on verbal or body language cues as to what kind of behavior is expected. (E.g., "Perhaps your child would be more comfortable in the lobby?" as a euphemism for, "Get your screaming baby out of the Chopin recital!" will work in most cases, but some people will remain oblivious.)

Similarly, in forums you'll find some people that need to be instructed in the most plain and direct terms what is expected of them. Sometimes it's a language/culture issue, but at other times it seems to be purely a lack of forum socialization.