Over used "off topic" accusation rather than discussion

The accusation of "off topic" seems to be used inappropriately rather than discuss a point someone has made. I came here from the old political crossfire forums hoping for actual debate, but on three occasions in the last day or so I have been accused of going off topic and the the accuser blindly refusing to acknowledge the point I was making.

I can understand that folk don't want threads to be derailed, but I don't believe I was anywhere near being off topic in any of those instances.

In a thread about a child sex abuse case I was told violent child abuse was off topic when using it as a direct comparison to the example in the OP

In a thread about Israel or the US possibly attacking Iran, we were told mentioning Israel was off topic.

In a thread about a gay rights activist exploiting their child where the OP even refers an example of children exploited/sexualized and makes remarks about blah blah gay this and that, I was told that a comparable example of child exploitation from the straight community was off topic.

While have found some actual discussion in this forum I have found a few too many examples of this and IMHO it stifles debate and reduces some threads to little more than a link, an ambiguous, vague premise if at all and then a line of cheerleaders making one liner quips about how X Y or Z group of people are bad.

Is that what this place is usually like or is it just a full moon ?

 

I agree with you here Iam. I was recently accused of being off-topic for pointing out Obama was in NH on a thread about a law being passed in NH that questioned his eligibility to run for re-election.

Off-topic seems to be a catch-all violation for when mods don't like reading what you posted. Face it, you could follow just about anybody around and sooner or later, they'd all go off-topic. Otherwise forum discussions would consist of:

Obama sucks.
No, he doesnt.
Yes, he does.
No, he doesn't.
Yes, he does.
No, he doesn't.
Yes, he does.

Who wants to post on a forum like that?

They need to back-off the off-topic kick and worry more about the plethora of trolls who seem to get away with posting meaningless nonsense on every thread.

Just my $.02. Added to yours, that makes $.04.

 

this was not mods, this was posters, I was hoping for the mods opinions, but yea I agree, many threads do seem to be a long line of meaningless tit for tat

 

Same thing... the posters report it to the mods who eventually issue warnings or infractions. I wouldn't look for mod intervention to make other posters quit saying your posts are off-topic.

 

Its difficult to make everyone happy, and perceptions vary.

Perhaps this will help.

http://www.politicalforum.com/current-events/announcements.html

 

If someone is harassing you, please DO report it to the mods. They will address it.

 

Not one of my those accusation meets this criteria and to compound my annoyance, the very poster who complained about me posting a non current example to contrast with the OP in the current events section has just replied to my post by posting a non current example to contrast with the OP in the current events section.

What gives ? I wasn't hoping for intervention but I was certainly hoping for a little more than a link... perhaps an opinion as to whether I am in violation of the guideline or not ?

 

Please start a thread in 'suggestion', along with links to the questionable posts.
Thanks.

 

I would agree with this as the moderators can directly address specific concerns privately in the Suggestion Box. We don't want to do that on the public forums.

Of note a post that states that another post is off topic is in and of itself also off topic. Members are best advised to simply ignore off topic posts that haven't been addressed by the moderators, and there are probably thousands of them, and stick to addressing posts that are on topic related to the thread. Off topic posts that are ignored don't really distract from the discussion and do not derail the thread. Replying to off topic posts is what really leads to the derailment of a thread which is what we want to avoid.

Shiva_TD
Site Moderator

 

This discussion with the member that raised the concerns has been taken up in the Suggestion Box and so I'm closing this thread.

Shiva_TD
Site Moderator