Off Topic ??

The Gish

A thread that was started on this forum ran its course but during the course of the topic another conversation came out of it. A moderator in his wisdom closed the thread because it "went off topic" ????
Surely any conversation started either here or on the stree or in the local pub can change subject matter mid stream. Thats what having a conversation is all about.
Any anyway what harm does it do? Does this mean that every subject matter MUST have a seperate thread ??
Can a moderator explain please.
And please let common sense be a factor in the responses.

stick-dan

Which thread are you on about? a link would help.

The Gish

stick-dan wrote: »

Which thread are you on about? a link would help.

"Cheap Drinks & a Cheap Night Out" on this forum.
But in general I have seen threads closed beacuse they went off topic a bit. So what? I find it diffficult to understand why a thread would be closed because people chatting went off topic. Isnt that the whole idea of this site...to get people talking about issues.....and if you do happen to go off topic a little what harm does it do?
A leads to B leads to C etc etc thats the art of conversation

Sorry....am at a bit of a loss when it comes to inserting links etc

tombull82

Well I would assume it is due to the fact that the threads Topic has gone off Topic.

I.e the Topic was "Cheap Drinks & a Cheap Night Out" but the last post's had all become related to Door security and licenses.

So as you say this is fine in a pub conversation, which I totally agree with.

But from a Mod's POV If I as a Boardie came onto boards with a question about whether a Door man needs to display his tags or not, I will not start reading threads about "Cheap Drinks & a Cheap Night Out" because it is not related to my question and why would I think my answer would be contained within such a thread.
This means I will have to start up a new thread which is using even more server resources to explain what is already wrote within another thread.

My 2cents worth.

And yes I know I was the last post before the afore mention threads was locked. :-)

stick-dan

My POV will be taken as biased seeing as i used to mod this forum, but i think that this is being blown way too far out of proportion. I would agree completely what tombull said. It's like if your in the soccer forum and someone derails a thread on liverpool FC by saying that they were playing soccer in cornonation street and the thread then takes off about coronation street.It's impossible to accurately keep track of things if threads are allowed to go off topic.

I'm sorry but i'd stand by the mods decision on this event. I've wrongly closed and moved threads in the past and admitted it too when questioned and subsequently fixed it but on this occasion they are correct in my opinion.

IvyTheTerrible

Isn't a rule against off-topic posting in the charter?

tombull82

Actually

Just rereading the "Cheap Drinks & a Cheap Night Out" thread again and tbh the only post which was inline with the topic was the OP's post.

ShayK1

tombull82 gave a pretty good explaination there, but just to ad to that....

Going off-topic in a thread can take from another forum, the OP was posting about a cheap night out IN CARLOW. The thread then derailed into a conversation that would be more suited to a law forum or something along those lines.

Would you go and post in a law forum about a cheap night out in Carlow? I think not.

Anywho.... thread closed.

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