Dealing with hijacking posts
 

Randy I understand that you cannot moderate every thread on omni however I wanted to point out a thread that certain posters have attempted to take off topic. The thread title is Captured Fox journalists convert to Islam and are then freed.It includes certain members taking cheap shots at fox news. I for one am getting tired of the hijacking on omni and think there should be some sort of punishment for it.
cheers
howie
Ps.Thread is http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=595029&page=1

I don't want to talk for Randy, but he has put in a lot of effort lately to try and get folks on OMNI to be more on topic. If you take a look at the recent thread regarding Spike Lee's "When The Levee's Broke," you'll see what I am talking about.

Cheap shots on Fox News will occur in any forum that his not very tightly moderated. References to FNC is one of those things I've learned to leave out of posts unless it's really essential to the subject.

I can imagine what cheap shots an actual thread on FNC would inspire.

The more I'm around FT, the more I try to avoid gratuitous political comments. And I'm sure I've made a good number of them in the past, just please kick me if you catch me doing it again. It's always good to focus on the subject.

If Fox News can claim with a straight face that they are "Fair and Balanced", I for one will take every shot I can, cheap or not, at exposing them for what they really are.

I think that is the point that the OP is making -- that those who do not like Fox are happy to drive any subject off topic to take their shots.

If you want to start a topic about Fox's coverage, you would certainly be free to do so. I don't imagine, however, that you would be thrilled to see it hijacked by a group demanding that all Muslims be subjected to extra screening at airports.

If someone else wants to discuss the the forced conversion of hostages by Islamic extremeists, than he should be free to do so without it being hijacked by those who don't like Fox.

Fair enough - but virtually every thread I can think of has contributions that are not 100% related to the threads title, but that are relevant in some way to the discussion. It's not really hijacking.

Hijacking is what the FTer makes of it.

We've all seen the off-topic comment. Sometimes it derails into a distinct conversation and sometimes it is ignored and forgottten.

The second option is the best one, IMHO.

OK, I'll bite.

How is the constant Fox Bashing even remotely relevant to the thread about the captured journalists?

If they had been CNN employees, do you think people would have been making the same off-topic shots at CNN?

Agreed, but the answer lies in stopping the hijacking, not in excusing it from both sides.

Are you quoting a post not in this thread or is there a post missing in this thread that renders it difficult to follow?

And what is perceived as hijacking a thread by some may be anything but such in the opinions of other.

There was a post from ScottC that I quoted. It seems to have disappeared.

I have no idea of why -- it certainly did not seem like a TOS violation or anything that somebody might have reported as a bad post. :confused:

Maybe he deleted it because at some point the mods had decided not to post in this forum. I thought a "regular" user could not delete his post once someone quoted it. Maybe it overlapped.

There is so much hijacking on OMNI how do you evenly apply anti-hijacking rules? You may not like the off topic comments about Fox in this specific case, but if you apply a set of narrowly defined rules, you risk stifling the give & take OMNI is famous, or infamous ;) , for.

MHO, take the good with the bad.

Put me down for the same -- especially as one person's standard of "hijacking" may well not be someone else's.

So it's ok to turn a terrible event such as journalists being kidnapped and then forced to convert to islam into wise cracks about fox news?? I think that is down right sick and shows the sad state of omni
cheers
howie