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On Classic CompuServe and Usenet. People loved to discuss things to death. I could read a question someone posted, and the answer that followed. Then everyone would discuss the answer, and pretty soon they were discussing issues surrounding the answer, similar issues, etc. By the time I got to the end of the thread I not only had the answer, but I had a thorough education on one aspect of computing. Or an art technique. Or how to cook a chicken. It just depended on the topic of the forum. Of course, there was also off-topic thread drift. People would complain about this, and eventually one of the staff members felt compelled to advise people to stay on topic. This never worked in the long run. And the staff member would always look like a fussbudget. The only thing that helped was splitting the thread, as long as it didn't remove the on-topic thread drift. And perhaps one of the most valuable things about thread drift is it was part of community spirit. It was people wanting to hang out and talk with each other. And this core of people were always ready (and even polite) in helping newbies with the same question that had been answered before, because we were all in such a good mood with all the fun we had discussing everything to death with each other. And beside, all we had to do is cut and paste the previous answer.
It seems to be harder to get this spirit these days. But I still find it in some places.
I am not sure why the mods on CD want to stop the discussions when they drift into interesting ideas that are different from the thread topic. To me, thread drift is part of the charm of discussions.
On Classic CompuServe and Usenet. People loved to discuss things to death. I could read a question someone posted, and the answer that followed. Then everyone would discuss the answer, and pretty soon they were discussing issues surrounding the answer, similar issues, etc. By the time I got to the end of the thread I not only had the answer, but I had a thorough education on one aspect of computing. Or an art technique. Or how to cook a chicken. It just depended on the topic of the forum. Of course, there was also off-topic thread drift. People would complain about this, and eventually one of the staff members felt compelled to advise people to stay on topic. This never worked in the long run. And the staff member would always look like a fussbudget. The only thing that helped was splitting the thread, as long as it didn't remove the on-topic thread drift. And perhaps one of the most valuable things about thread drift is it was part of community spirit. It was people wanting to hang out and talk with each other. And this core of people were always ready (and even polite) in helping newbies with the same question that had been answered before, because we were all in such a good mood with all the fun we had discussing everything to death with each other. And beside, all we had to do is cut and paste the previous answer.
It seems to be harder to get this spirit these days. But I still find it in some places.
I am not sure why the mods on CD want to stop the discussions when they drift into interesting ideas that are different from the thread topic. To me, thread drift is part of the charm of discussions.
On Classic CompuServe and Usenet. People loved to discuss things to death. I could read a question someone posted, and the answer that followed. Then everyone would discuss the answer, and pretty soon they were discussing issues surrounding the answer, similar issues, etc. By the time I got to the end of the thread I not only had the answer, but I had a thorough education on one aspect of computing. Or an art technique. Or how to cook a chicken. It just depended on the topic of the forum. Of course, there was also off-topic thread drift. People would complain about this, and eventually one of the staff members felt compelled to advise people to stay on topic. This never worked in the long run. And the staff member would always look like a fussbudget. The only thing that helped was splitting the thread, as long as it didn't remove the on-topic thread drift. And perhaps one of the most valuable things about thread drift is it was part of community spirit. It was people wanting to hang out and talk with each other. And this core of people were always ready (and even polite) in helping newbies with the same question that had been answered before, because we were all in such a good mood with all the fun we had discussing everything to death with each other. And beside, all we had to do is cut and paste the previous answer.
It seems to be harder to get this spirit these days. But I still find it in some places.
I am not sure why the mods on CD want to stop the discussions when they drift into interesting ideas that are different from the thread topic. To me, thread drift is part of the charm of discussions.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to keywords and search results. This site gets traffic from search engines, so going off-topic dilutes the value of the content (generating irrelevant keywords), making it less likely to seen in search engines. That's my guess, anyway.
Thread drift is not unlike when you sit down to read the Wikipedia entry on the Ontological Argument, and the next time you look at the clock an hour has passed and you find yourself reading about all the known isotopes of nitrogen. You don't know how you got there, but somewhere along the line you read about the history of bread, Kermit the Frog, airport runways, and Chaucer. And probably other stuff you can't remember.
When you finally log off, you still don't know much about the Ontological Argument. However, you are remarkably conversant in runway construction techniques and naming conventions.
Thread drift is not unlike when you sit down to read the Wikipedia entry on the Ontological Argument, and the next time you look at the clock an hour has passed and you find yourself reading about all the known isotopes of nitrogen. You don't know how you got there, but somewhere along the line you read about the history of bread, Kermit the Frog, airport runways, and Chaucer. And probably other stuff you can't remember.
When you finally log off, you still don't know much about the Ontological Argument. However, you are remarkably conversant in runway construction techniques and naming conventions.
Thread drift is natural. Those that detest thread drift are likely wired differently. They are likely very dogmatic, rigid, and hyper-conscientious.
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What is Thread Drift
