• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Definition of a hijacked thread?

Andy12345

Expert
Messages
6,342
Location
Surrey
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Doctors
Hi

I'm curious as to what constitutes a hijacked thread?

If someone asks a question or for advice and it is discussed, is it ok to then chat over a digression at the end of that thread or does that constitute a hijacking, is it better etiquette to start a new thread for every thought we have, in today's case we were chatting about the rugby, Catherine apologised to the OP over the thread being hijacked, I don't want to be a hijacker of anything so to avoid this should I assume it's not ok to talk about anything else apart from the threads original topic?

Thanks
 
Agree totally with OP. Surely conversation evolves and flows naturally. Opening post had a title and I'm pretty sure that when it moved on, those no longer interested could simply stop reading. I don't see it as detrimental to original post......but probably being the unwitting instigator I would say that wouldn't I. From now on I will be extremely careful to stick to topic.
Cricket anyone?
 
What I find even more irritating is when someone starts a thread, gets loads of great replies, then you never hear from them again ! No feedback, thanks or anything ! As for hijacking, my guess would be it would depend on the topic and whether OP had received answers prior to thread going off topic. If we started a thread every time someone had something slightly off topic it would just get silly.
 
I have always thought that answering as if talking to the OP was the correct way to go. I sometimes stray from that ideal by responding to something someone else has said but I like to think it is, at least, still on topic.

What I deplore is a poster who only visits a thread to analyse and criticise other posters and never getting on topic. There are some fine examples of that on this board.

Once, on another forum I commented that whatever the topic began as, it always ended up chatting about sex or football. Another poster promptly asked me what team I supported then. Funny.

I suppose that if your comment was way off topic it costs nothing to start your own thread.
 
Could have been worse, they may have asked what your favourite sexual position was lol !
 



Cricket? Are you trying to hijack my thread?

 
Just had a look at the thread in question and in fairness it did go way off topic and wasn't relevant to what the OP was saying.
 
That particular thread appeared to me to have reached its end point, so I saw no issue. There was no dispute over the advice given once it was realised that fat consumption was not an option for the OP, and as the OP gave no further feedback seemed a fairly harmless digression to me. If the original topic needed to be returned to it would have been easily done. See no reason for anyone to get frazzled by it.

It was a much more pleasant digression than most of the more confrontational ones we see, no pistols at dawn involved at all.


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
Yes I agree, so to avoid it happening, what are the guidelines? Although way off topic, it had been discussed fully I thought and saw no harm, but if I'm wrong it'd be nice to avoid doing the wrong thing and being accused of hijacking in the future

Sorry this wasn't a reply to you mr bear but to noblehead
 

As you are concerned about what I said can I clarify that highjacking a thread is replying to an existing thread with a different topic. We are all guilty from time to time and my post was not against anyone in particular. You seem to have taken it personally.

My message was on topic and a reply to the OP.
 


I don't think there are any guidelines........or non that I know of.

In the past I've seen threads get split-off by the Mods and a new one started so that the original discussion wasn't derailed further, in fairness (again) I think at some point we have all been guilty of going off topic ...........so I hold my hands up here
 



No not taken it personally, just sounds like a bad thing to do so don't want to do it again if I can avoid it
 
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…