Seriously, I'm getting goddamn tired of this.

[nagia]

Dear zvi:

I think you need to step back and reexamine your actions and your motives. Because it looks to me like you've got yourself in a hole, and rather than jump out of it, you're just continuing to dig.

Do you understand that your post in your journal about this tangent makes up a part of the larger imbroglio? Do you understand that people, in following the larger imbroglio, will re-direct their attention to your post, because you have positioned it as being a part of the larger discussion at hand?

I'm a late-comer to this, but from what I understand, the entry in question would not have received much attention--if any at all--had it not been posted to linkspam, and had the resulting kerfuffle not been posted to metafandom.

It is completely permissible to rabbit trail on a personal journal. That's half of what they're for. And if you rabbit trail on your personal journal, you're not hurting anything. You're not shutting down anybody else's conversations. You're not making a discussion between or about other parties all about you.

If the user in question had posted links to that entry here, back, and beyond indicating that it should be part of the discussion, you would have a point. If the user in question had invaded somebody else's meta post and gone off on this tangent, or had deliberately re-directed someone else's conversation, you would have a point.

But from all indications I've seen, the user in question did none of that.

Not everybody wants to be part of every conversation all the time. I will say this again: not everybody wants to be part of every conversation all the time, and it is ridiculous that you would drag someone into a fight they didn't agree to enter.

This user didn't even have the option to say, "Please take that link down, I don't want to be part of this discussion."

The party who linked the "derailing" entry was linkspam. If linkspam felt that the post was only tangentially related, it had the option of not linking. To decide to link a tangentially related post, tag it as "derailing," and then offer no recourse for the link's removal is, gasp shock surprise, appropriating somebody else's content.

Let's try that again, just to make absolutely sure my logic is clear. linkspam took something that was not linkspam's, without permission, and posted it under a label one hundred percent sure to offend--again without permission--thus using content for linkspam's own purposes in a way it had not been intended.

What exactly would you call that?

Comments

[kaigou]

I've been trying to figure out the logic in the inconsistency between two different zvi-statements, and wondering whether it's worth the hassle of actually confronting it directly. Basically, in a post about derailing, Zvi clarified (in what I thought was a pretty straight-forward and pragmatic approach) that derailing is based on context above all else. Elsewhere in the same post's comments, she also noted that if you're not sure whether your post is derailing, to not link to the triggering post but just post your own statements without connection.

The first, okay, that makes sense. The second... yes, and yet no, because sometimes the triggering discussion is the context behind a person's post: "that made me think of this." It doesn't mean there's a direct connection, only that that made me think of this (even if sometimes, like for me, there's several other things between "that" and "this").

But then she made a post about how any public post, anywhere on the net, on topic A is part of an ongoing discussion related to topic A, and that if you don't want to be considered part of that, then don't post at all on the 'net. (!?!?)

Which means the pseudo-loophole of contextuality determining derailment (that is, post in another context != derailing) just got wiped, because there is no other freaking context. I mean, if I post about how horses and dogs don't get along, and there was wank last year about horses and dogs, suddenly my post -- thanks to being public -- is now part of this other flamefest of which I knew absolutely nothing? And I'm even potentially derailing it?

It's ridiculous. The contradiction between the two positions is one thing, but for it to be one person and made within days of each other... that's pretty out there. But it's even more out there to effectively argue that there is only one big ur-conversation, and if you deviate, you derail, and if you don't want to be considered derailing, you should just shut up.

Oh, yeah, that's a great way to move the internet talk along.

[nagia]

Fully agreed.

That second position is just mindboggling for me.

To continue schattenstern's metaphor, it's like moving into a neighborhood and talking about your yard automatically makes you part of the big-ass feud between Roger Smith and Steve Blum about that time Steve borrowed Roger's lawnmower and never gave it back. You didn't even know about the lawnmower theft; you just happened to notice that you had crab grass in your yard.