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Well, the question of "when is it appropriate to call a halt to something I feel is offtopic" is, as you have noted, not quite the same as the question when what you feel is offtopic is a discussion of language or statements that are apparently causing unhappiness or discomfort to people on prejudicial grounds.
There's a fair amount of prior art on this, and one of the problems is that in specialist areas the area of specialism is generally going to be considered more important than addressing a felt injustice which might not impact the specialists at all.
So, for example, there was unhappiness in the rot of the Marvel Comics trivia thread when people started challenging the description of gypsies as smelly and illiterate. There was unhappiness when a perfectly good thread on the Gematria was disrupted by challenges of the idea of the international Jewish conspiracy. In more general parts, this actually happens less. When Vladimir commented that he feared that banging Indians would make his cock drop off, there was relatively little upset at a robust challenge, although continued challenging of what was egregiously offensive behaviour elsewhere caused a degree of friction. Ultimately, what should have happened at the start happened, and he was banned, which would have saved that heartache.
In the case of Hendrix, one imagines that there is not much malice - GH was just a bit inept, in his original choice of words and in his subsequent attempts to explain them. Represntations have been made and will probably now be left.
A comparable example might be the Ratatouille thread - here, where Nico's attempt to write off the examination of possible class issues in the film as overanalysis. This position was criticised, and the issues raised by her reaction were talked over. Also, just as in the Wonder Woman thread, hieronymus decided to abandon talking in any way about a subject about which he had nothing useful to say, in order to launch an attack on me, because hieronymus is a terrible moderator.
However, in defiance of the offtopic flaming produced by hieronymus, the thread moved back ontopic simply by those who were able to have a discussion having a discussion, and the quality of those posts meant that people responded to them and discussed them.
In general, a topic will return to its core if the original post was of decent quality, if the stupidity in the thread is not too egregious and if there is a discussion worth having despite challenges being made to threads. The Wonder Woman thread is a messy thread to start, since it is a link to an article, but also involves Grady Hendrix's views on (Marston's views on) women's superiority and the existence of a constant but submerged debate on the possible superiority of women to men - which also managed to pull in racial differences in intelligence and "tranny hookers". Given the richness of that stew of ideas, it's not wholly surprising that a degree of offtopic discussion ensued. However, Hieronymus' flameburst aside, the conversation appears to be stabilising and centralising, with an offshoot in Barbequotes.
It's castrating for a moderator to admit, but that probably would have happened with or without the mod hat - the best thing a moderator can do is often to try to come up with a strand of the argument that is of interest and likely to inspire further discussion, while acknowledging the need for a space to deal with challenges to what might appear as offtopic and unnecessary responses to what to him or her do not seem overly contentious ideas, and letting that pay out unless it appears to be in danger of severely damaging a thread worth saving.
It's all a bit vague, I realise. Hands-off moderating helped to kill the Head Shop, but seeing if a thread has a centre to spin back to can be useful, I think. |
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