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

[darkrose]

In general, I agree that if you don't want other people to comment, you shouldn't post publically. However, I also think that within LJ culture, if you say, "Please don't link this in X community", it's a reasonable request. And I think it's bullshit to say that having linkspam tag a post as "derailing" is a neutral act; it's a potentially loaded value judgement by one individual.

I'm also unhappy with the way linkspam has turned into a bludgeon, but that may be a separate post.

[nagia]

That first bit is a point I can get behind: if you don't want comments, then don't put it where it can get them. Makes sense, when you're talking about fanwork and for-public-consumption meta.

But Zvi takes it to a whole new level. "If you don't want to be called derailing, just don't say it/post it/leave it public" is not only absurd, it effectively shuts down conversation. I do not understand why zvi would think that this would be a good theme for a meta post, since meta is all about discussion/engendering discussion.

As for link removal, I'd think it's a totally reasonable request. If somebody civilly points out that they are not/don't want to be/don't consider themselves part of the current discussion and they would like the link removed, there's no reason not to remove the link. linkspam's refusal to do so and apparent kerfuffle about it is just infuriating.