A few words on threadjacking.

[jsgilbert]

Social media continues to grow in importance as well as in sure numbers of participants.

It seems that lately I've been seeing many things get out of hand, even in places I'm not participating.

Please read this blog entry and tenure your opinions, suggestions or anecdotes.

http://jsgilbert.com/officer-i%e2%80...-threadjacked/
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[Scott Pollak]

What wine do you folks think goes best with seafood?

[CK_Voices]

Lol @ Scott. Speaking of wine....

[BlackLight]

Probably 99 times out of 100, I don't even notice when a threadjack happens. I don't get annoyed by pop-up ads. I don't get bothered when you see ads scroll across your display, blocking the content you actually want to see. I just close these when I see them. I accept that off-topic BB posts, like unwanted ad content, is just part of the rough-and-tumble of internet life, and I give it it's due consideration (which is to say, none at all).

The main BB I frequent (not VO related) has a few enumerated rules: No flaming or trolling (ignored constantly), Treat everyone with respect (see previous), restrictions on certain graphic content (rarely an issue), all porn content restricted to the porn forum (no problems there), and no cursing in post titles (pretty well adhered to and enforced - we save our profanity for the posts themselves). We don't bother trying to police threadjacking, and for this I'm grateful. To me, when a thread starts going off-topic, even wildly off-topic, the people that want to get it back on-topic can do so - there's nothing stopping them. Especially not in the era of 'Reply With Quote.' Maybe when a particular board gets a massive amount of traffic or replies, it becomes an issue, since even I don't want to wade through a ton of nonsense if the original topic was interesting to me. But I've not seen many BBs that deal in that much content.

To answer some of your other questions - I think the rules of social media outlets (like BBs) are so nebulous that the odds of unwittingly making a mistake with any lasting implications are pretty much nil. In e-mail, I think the odds are higher. You generally want to be kinda careful about what you post on your Facebook or Twitter feed. But I firmly believe in the Law of Internet Common Sense (hold your jokes, please) - that is, it's pretty difficult to do real damage to your career or reputation by accident. You have to either be trying to do it, or you have to lack sufficient intellect that it was bound to happen eventually anyway.

[Kristin Lennox]

I'll admit I'm guilty of interjecting barely-on-topic humor into threads and on Facebook. I try to avoid it, and often I'm successful...

But think of me as the human Roger Rabbit when he hears "shave and a haircut..." If I get lobbed the perfect set-up to a joke, I start sweating, and need to practically sit on my hands not to reply to it.

It's a good point, though, JS... like any kind of written communication, so much can be lost in the translation. Whenever I write, whether it be in an email, on Facebook or in a forum, I always re-read for every possible meaning, to try to avoid any misinterpretation. Beyond that, there's not much anyone can do. One person's threadjack may be another person's fascinating tangent...

[jsgilbert]

Thanks for actually looking at this and taking the time to process it. The general reaction has left most places where I posted this just leaving back a stream of non-sequitors, even from people who don't know me.

In LinkedIn, you can belong to 50 groups and it's very hard to keep track (for me) when you are regularly scanning and/or contributing to more than about 6 or 7. I'm not sure what people do with 50 groups. It also seems as though a person gets ticked off and leaves and creates a competing group and so on.

Some of these groups and a few other places I haunt, such as some software user group sites, etc. have become more of a waste of time than any other kind of help. Jacking threads and using them as IM is fairly common. Flaming, bullying and lots of other issues too. Some of the aforementioned groups on LinkedIn have no policing and it seems that the network affiliate marketers have taken over, the same way a group of meth addicts may take over an abandoned house.

In soicl media, we invest time and energy to get to know people and it hurts when the issues become so bad that the sites become abandoned. It seems like some hard work and time goes for naught.

I suppose like anything, water will seek its own level. I actually have received a couple of invites to "closed rooms". I'm not sure how much I like them, but they do seem to be rather on point.

[Mike Sommer]

¿que?