The Fora: A Higher Education Community

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 07:00:15 AM

Title: Thread hijacking
Post by: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 07:00:15 AM
This came up on another thread, and so as to avoid thread hijacking there, I thought this warranted its own discussion. For context:
Quote from: Hibush on November 25, 2020, 03:04:27 PM
Quote from: mamselle on November 25, 2020, 02:02:59 PM
Quote from: dr_codex on November 25, 2020, 01:58:56 PM
Not sure that this is going to make any impact, but I'd like to try.

This thread, and its ancestor on the CHE boards, has always been a valuable ticker for tracking institutions in distress. I've learned a lot from both iterations, and want to thank Spork for sharing expertise, insight, and a toolbox for doing the work on our own.

The frequent hijacking of the thread by the same folks who hijack almost every thread into the same, dreary, predictable dead ends is frustrating.

I'm not a censor. I'm not a mod. I'm not crying goodbye, cruel fora. But I'd ask everybody to think about where they comment, if not what.

Happy Thanks, to those who Thanks.

DC

+1

I've mentioned this a couple of times before.

Seemingly--hijackers gotta hijack.

I wish they wouldn't, also. The basic info and some interpretive responses are useful, the spiral galactic reasoning pudding, not so much.

M.

I'm afraid I set it off by calling Dubuque "rural". Sorry about that.

So what constitutes thread hijacking? I would suggest, like in the example above, that rather than being hijacked, threads often go off on tangents. Given that bits are free, and no-one has a posting quota imposed, anyone can continue to post on any thread following the original idea, even if some people have gone off on a tangent. For people who get frustrated with these tangents, what makes it feel like a problem? Is it that it means having to potentially read through lots of tangential posts to find ones related to the original idea?

As expected, the thread activity is a Pareto distribution, with a few threads getting the vast majority of traffic. Note that views follow the same pattern as replies; so threads that are active because of tangents get many more views than less busy ones. How many people prefer threads that are either mostly chi-chat or purely informational? If those were the only threads the data suggest the total amount of views on the site would be vastly smaller, indicating less interest.

I'd really like to see a discussion of this, and for what it's worth, I'm not concerned about whether this thread gets "hijacked". (Personally, I would reserve that term for cases such as where discussions get filled with spam from advertisers, typically having nothing to do with the topic. Any discussion flowing from the thread itself is fair game to me. )
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: Parasaurolophus on November 26, 2020, 08:03:27 AM
It seems to me that hijacking occurs when someone shoehorns in their pet issue when that issue is not immediately relevant to the topic, and has not otherwise arisen naturally in the course of regular discourse.

Imagine, for instance, I took this opportunity to get on my high horse about torture and prosecuting the Bush (and Obama) administrations' war crimes. That would be a hijacking attempt.

Spam is just spam. It's unsightly, but its function isn't to turn a thread around and give it a wholly new destination.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 08:20:10 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on November 26, 2020, 08:03:27 AM
It seems to me that hijacking occurs when someone shoehorns in their pet issue when that issue is not immediately relevant to the topic, and has not otherwise arisen naturally in the course of regular discourse.

Imagine, for instance, I took this opportunity to get on my high horse about torture and prosecuting the Bush (and Obama) administrations' war crimes. That would be a hijacking attempt.

Fair enough. But do you think it has much effect? In the cases I can think of, it seems that maybe one or two people respond, but after that the discussion pretty much goes on as if it never happened.

If you (or anyone) can point to an example of a thread that got clearly and permanently hijacked I'd be interested to see it.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: Caracal on November 26, 2020, 08:26:49 AM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on November 26, 2020, 08:03:27 AM
It seems to me that hijacking occurs when someone shoehorns in their pet issue when that issue is not immediately relevant to the topic, and has not otherwise arisen naturally in the course of regular discourse.



Yeah, I agree. Someone was complaining a while ago because a thread on colleges and cover had strayed into some other topic. However, if I recall correctly, there was just a natural conversational progression. Someone wrote something related to the original topic, but which touched on something else and some of us were interested in that issue, even though it didn't have anything to do with Covid. The hijacking is when you have people seizing on the most tendentious connections to harp on whatever they like to harp about. That's how you have every discussion about undergrad majors turn into a diatribe about the foolishness of humanities phds, or every question about teaching become a discussion about adjuncts.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 08:34:04 AM
Is this a hijack, or not?

Poster A:  I'd like to discuss this article about levels of stress and substance issue abuse vulnerability among college professors. (Poster A then includes a link to an article claiming to be about college professors generally and contains zero data about, nor mention of adjunct faculty.)

Posters B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J:  Well, here's what I've experienced.

Poster K: Uhm, wonder why they didn't include adjunct faculty in the study?

Poster B: You're supposed to quit and get a real job, then come back and teach in your spare time so you can give back to the community....us! How many times have you been told...
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 08:40:55 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 08:34:04 AM
Is this a hijack, or not?

Poster A:  I'd like to discuss this article about levels of stress and substance issue abuse vulnerability among college professors. (Poster A then includes a link to an article claiming to be a about college professors generally the contains zero data about, nor mention of adjunct faculty.)

Posters B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J:  Well, here' what i've experienced.

Poster K: Uhm, wonder why they didn't include adjunct faculty in the study?

Personally, my preference would be that Poster K would continue on to say "Here are some factors unique to adjuncts that would likely make the results different from those for full-time faculty", and including some suggestion of how the results would differ.

In a nutshell, any insights provided are good for the discussion; hand-wringing much less so. (But that's just me.)
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 08:46:51 AM
i would rather that any articles that purport to be about college faculty generally and are not at all about adjunct faculty be censored as hate speech. But that's just me.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: AmLitHist on November 26, 2020, 08:49:42 AM
I don't know that hijacking derails or ruins a thread.  However, I do know that there are some threads I'd like to read, but I no longer do, simply because of the activity Parasauroloophus describes.  I've "ignored" the poster who engages in that activity, but still, when others respond to or quote that person, there it is again, and I don't care to spend time reading all the hijack and response.

Just my $0.02.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: spork on November 26, 2020, 08:58:56 AM
Quote from: AmLitHist on November 26, 2020, 08:49:42 AM
I don't know that hijacking derails or ruins a thread.  However, I do know that there are some threads I'd like to read, but I no longer do, simply because of the activity Parasauroloophus describes.  I've "ignored" the poster who engages in that activity, but still, when others respond to or quote that person, there it is again, and I don't care to spend time reading all the hijack and response.

Just my $0.02.

Same.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: Caracal on November 26, 2020, 09:09:15 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 08:34:04 AM
Is this a hijack, or not?

Poster A:  I'd like to discuss this article about levels of stress and substance issue abuse vulnerability among college professors. (Poster A then includes a link to an article claiming to be about college professors generally and contains zero data about, nor mention of adjunct faculty.)

Posters B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J:  Well, here's what I've experienced.

Poster K: Uhm, wonder why they didn't include adjunct faculty in the study?

Poster B: You're supposed to quit and get a real job, then come back and teach in your spare time so you can give back to the community....us! How many times have you been told...

It's like the person at the conference or workshop who always has to ask why the author isn't addressing the thing they study. Sure, sometimes neglecting something can be a glaring omission, but everything can't be about everything else. Just because some article doesn't specifically mention adjunct faculty doesn't mean the person is ignoring them.
And, yes, the second thing is thread hijacking too.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 09:12:17 AM
QuoteEvery article doesn't have to talk about adjunct faculty.

Wow, thanks for clearing that up. A lot of CHE, Slate and InsideHigherEd writers are sure gonna do things differently if they read that!

There's really no reason to discuss adjunct faculty concerns on this forum. It's toxic for that. However, occasionally mentioning how the tenure track is not the savior fo the free world that it envisions itself to be might be interesting. Or for example, how it hampers the democratic party's chance to be more relevant.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: jimbogumbo on November 26, 2020, 09:13:02 AM
Maybe not hijacked, but Colleges in Dire Financial Straits has certainly been derailed. The last several posts regarding Appalachia would be way better off in its own thread, or back in the Elections Thread.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 09:37:37 AM
Quote from: jimbogumbo on November 26, 2020, 09:13:02 AM
Maybe not hijacked, but Colleges in Dire Financial Straits has certainly been derailed. The last several posts regarding Appalachia would be way better off in its own thread, or back in the Elections Thread.

But at what point does a thread actually become "derailed"? And should someone be appointed to either tell people to get back on track or start a new thread? I can't really see a way to avoid these kinds of diversions without discouraging all kinds of worthwhile discussion.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 10:03:33 AM
Quote from: Caracal on November 26, 2020, 09:09:15 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 08:34:04 AM
Is this a hijack, or not?

Poster A:  I'd like to discuss this article about levels of stress and substance issue abuse vulnerability among college professors. (Poster A then includes a link to an article claiming to be about college professors generally and contains zero data about, nor mention of adjunct faculty.)

Posters B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J:  Well, here's what I've experienced.

Poster K: Uhm, wonder why they didn't include adjunct faculty in the study?

Poster B: You're supposed to quit and get a real job, then come back and teach in your spare time so you can give back to the community....us! How many times have you been told...

It's like the person at the conference or workshop who always has to ask why the author isn't addressing the thing they study. Sure, sometimes neglecting something can be a glaring omission, but everything can't be about everything else. Just because some article doesn't specifically mention adjunct faculty doesn't mean the person is ignoring them.
And, yes, the second thing is thread hijacking too.

Actually, an article such as the one I made up will have already taken into account the view of the culture at large, to wit;

"Stress and substance abuse vulnerability among tenure track faculty are matters of general concern; whereas, if it were to become unmanageable for people to succeed on the tenure track, academia falls apart at the seams. OTOH, stress and substance abuse vulnerability among adjunct faculty have never been matters of general concern for a variety of reasons, among them (1) they are easily replaced, (2) the presence of adjunct faculty is already the sign of the decay of academic life, therefore; the focus should be on pretending we're going to avoid adjuntification rather than addressing calamities that befall adjunct faculty when adjunctification has taken hold (which is just about universal); (3) their job being something that can be integrated into a well adjusted life has already been mostly given up on; therefore (3) solutions available are only individual solutions, i.e. giving up teaching permanantly following high levels of stress, leading to the solution for the group referred to in reason (1.)"

'Therefore, a piece delving into stress levels and substance abuse vulnerability among college faculty should not include anything about adjunct faculty. It should include only data of general interest.'
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mamselle on November 26, 2020, 10:05:47 AM
<<If you (or anyone) can point to an example of a thread that got clearly and permanently hijacked I'd be interested to see it.>>

When someone tries to re-enter material more germane to the overall thread topic and the other three or four hijacking posters keep going back to their pet peeves, it gets really tiresome.

Mostly, after three off-topic posts, I just give up and stop looking at the thread. So it's hijacked from then on from my perspective. I might try a couple times to re-route it back, but if the hijacking persists, I consider the thread dead (a la Fiona of blessed CHE memory) and just read the ones that haven't been so infected yet.

I teach my music students not to be Johnny- or Jill-one notes. I want expressive range and a variety of tones from them, and I expect the same of an academic discussion.

My personal teaching experience has all been as an adjunct, as well as a private music instructor and substitute in the public schools, but I don't feel the need to drag that into every discussion, nor do I welcome it when others do. (My work as an academic executive assistant provides whatever insights I have to TT issues; I try to be very careful neither to overstep my purview, nor to misrepresent myself in that sense).

Joining the "poor adjuncts we" chorus would be degrading in my sense of things--I've had wacky experiences as an adjunct, but not universally bad ones--and it would also be like saying that only my experience is normative for TT and NTT/semi-permanent faculty...so, no better balanced.

I want to learn more broadly about what others have experienced in other settings--in fact, if it ever became possible, because of other situations, to try to make a move like that, I'd feel very poorly served by threads that only, ever, always talked about adjunct issues and not the larger ones.

Maybe a thread or two on adjunct issues would be good, but when one gets started, the rectangular firing squad ignores that and keeps cropping up everywhere else, which belies the statement that they want more emphasis on adjunct issues.

And some things--like running a lab--are also science-vs-humanities issues. I've worked in both areas, the sciences as an EA, the humanities as a researcher, teacher, and writer, and I try to mention sometimes the fact that some of the assumptions might be more appropriate to one or the other side of that continuum.

But I don't go putting down science-y folks for their science-y-ness, or expect humanities folks to understand stuff that also didn't make sense to me at first when I found myself dealing with it in a lab setting.  And I don't expect to be able to shanghai the whole thread to my interests, but that's because my interests are a lot wider than that.

We also seem to forget sometimes that we're really the only--or one of the few--voice(s) doing this kind of work in the academic community overall, and it behooves us not to go flaming each other all the time.

People sometimes don't realize how narrow their interests are until others tell them. If they won't listen, then they never grow. And those who read these threads, sometimes coming here in hopes of finding help for something that's really troubling them, don't need all the angst.

We have an outward- as well as an inward-facing mission, and we need to behave/write/speak/respond to each other with that in mind.

M.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 12:08:35 PM
Quote from: mamselle on November 26, 2020, 10:05:47 AM

Maybe a thread or two on adjunct issues would be good,

not interested, thanks anyway

Quote...which belies the statement that they want more emphasis on adjunct issues.

The fact remains, an article that purports to be about the state of academia generally, or student experiences generally, or about academic job searching and hiring generally, and has nothing in it about the adjunct world is a hijack.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 12:40:48 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 09:12:17 AM
There's really no reason to discuss adjunct faculty POC concerns on this forum. It's toxic for that. However, occasionally mentioning how the tenure track whiteness is not the savior of the free world that it envisions itself to be might be interesting.
(Changes which sound like "anti-racist"-speak.)

Do you notice that your tone flips when you go from discussing racial issues to discussing faculty issues? In one case, you disparage the victim mentality and blaming others for the problems, whereas in the other case you embrace the victim mentality and blame others for the problems.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 12:44:22 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 12:40:48 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 09:12:17 AM
There's really no reason to discuss adjunct faculty POC concerns on this forum. It's toxic for that. However, occasionally mentioning how the tenure track whiteness is not the savior of the free world that it envisions itself to be might be interesting.
(Changes which sound like "anti-racist"-speak.)

Do you notice that your tone flips when you go from discussing racial issues to discussing faculty issues? In one case, you disparage the victim mentality and blaming others for the problems, whereas in the other case you embrace the victim mentality and blame others for the problems.

Do you notice that the woke, left American tenure track's tone flips, inversely to mine? Do you notice how they, not majority faculty, hold the views that ostensibly represent the well educated?
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 01:01:57 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 12:44:22 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 12:40:48 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 09:12:17 AM
There's really no reason to discuss adjunct faculty POC concerns on this forum. It's toxic for that. However, occasionally mentioning how the tenure track whiteness is not the savior of the free world that it envisions itself to be might be interesting.
(Changes which sound like "anti-racist"-speak.)

Do you notice that your tone flips when you go from discussing racial issues to discussing faculty issues? In one case, you disparage the victim mentality and blaming others for the problems, whereas in the other case you embrace the victim mentality and blame others for the problems.

Do you notice that the woke, left American tenure track's tone flips, inversely to mine? Do you notice how they, not majority faculty, hold the views that ostensibly represent the well educated?

I'd say they mostly claim that all faculty are victims of the cruel administration and government; so they see themselves more as innocent bystanders.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 02:08:40 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 01:01:57 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 12:44:22 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 12:40:48 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 09:12:17 AM
There's really no reason to discuss adjunct faculty POC concerns on this forum. It's toxic for that. However, occasionally mentioning how the tenure track whiteness is not the savior of the free world that it envisions itself to be might be interesting.
(Changes which sound like "anti-racist"-speak.)

Do you notice that your tone flips when you go from discussing racial issues to discussing faculty issues? In one case, you disparage the victim mentality and blaming others for the problems, whereas in the other case you embrace the victim mentality and blame others for the problems.

Do you notice that the woke, left American tenure track's tone flips, inversely to mine? Do you notice how they, not majority faculty, hold the views that ostensibly represent the well educated?

I'd say they mostly claim that all faculty are victims of the cruel administration and government; so they see themselves more as innocent bystanders.

They see themselves as nobly fighting the system on our behalf when no one requires them to.
Actually the question for me is not how we could get them to think or act differently but how could you have a system that does not use sacrificial positions, personnel who are presented to the students as fully professional but behind the scenes regarded as imposters. Does not run on lies, internal contradiction, lack of intentionality, or a one-size-fits-all requirement for research, resulting in colossal waste of energy and money.
People want their tenure because they worked hard for it, beginning with finding the job offering, moving, etc. There's no reason to expect them to feel any other way. The question shouldn't be how should they change, but more, what should be done about them.
It's striking to me, and not at all impressive, that despite widespread consensus that something has gone terribly wrong, i.e. the widespread use of temporary teaching positions in place of regular ones, there is virtually no call for reform.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: polly_mer on November 26, 2020, 06:04:04 PM
If you don't like it, then don't read it.  I had to put two forumites on ignore because I was dumber for reading what they wrote.

In general, I'd much rather read a vibrant discussion on something than have someone who practically never contributes on a given thread come in to scold about how the thread isn't what that person wanted at this point.  That's how normal conversations work--people want to talk about something and then continue talking about that thing.

The rural/urban split in the US on many issues is pretty interesting and will not be going away anytime soon.  Insisting that matters of education aren't influenced by the type of life one has and what one values is foolish. Insisting that something meaningful like that belongs on the politics thread is why people don't really believe that SPADFY applies in higher ed and why many, many people are confused to find out that their ideas are just one of many possible realities.

If a long-running thread isn't speaking to you right this second, then go away for a few days/weeks and check back in later.  Or don't and do something else with your life.  But being only a reader instead of a participant means that you, complaining reader, are the problem in not contributing something worth responding to.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: lightning on November 26, 2020, 06:50:44 PM
If you see posts on a venerable thread, and they are irrelevant to you, then just ignore and scroll on by--just like you would do on social media platforms. It's really easy to mentally filter out posts and posters, and scroll on by. Nobody really owns these boards (well, maybe Polly_mer since Polly_mer probably has access to the self-destruct button for the fora), nor does anyone own how threads are supposed to evolve. I'm actually very surprised at how someone even thinks it's even a major problem. The fluid, somewhat de-centralized, and somewhat unstructured nature of the fora is part of what makes them so useful. Yeah, someone might chime in and go on a tangent and take the thread with them for a little bit, and someone might even start yammering the same hackneyed talking points. But, so what. Ignore what you don't care to read, and scroll on.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: ciao_yall on November 26, 2020, 09:35:12 PM
The "ignore user" functions has changed my life.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just sayin'.

Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: ergative on November 27, 2020, 01:19:31 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 10:03:33 AM
Quote from: Caracal on November 26, 2020, 09:09:15 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 08:34:04 AM
Is this a hijack, or not?

Poster A:  I'd like to discuss this article about levels of stress and substance issue abuse vulnerability among college professors. (Poster A then includes a link to an article claiming to be about college professors generally and contains zero data about, nor mention of adjunct faculty.)

Posters B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J:  Well, here's what I've experienced.

Poster K: Uhm, wonder why they didn't include adjunct faculty in the study?

Poster B: You're supposed to quit and get a real job, then come back and teach in your spare time so you can give back to the community....us! How many times have you been told...

It's like the person at the conference or workshop who always has to ask why the author isn't addressing the thing they study. Sure, sometimes neglecting something can be a glaring omission, but everything can't be about everything else. Just because some article doesn't specifically mention adjunct faculty doesn't mean the person is ignoring them.
And, yes, the second thing is thread hijacking too.

Actually, an article such as the one I made up will have already taken into account the view of the culture at large, to wit;

"Stress and substance abuse vulnerability among tenure track faculty are matters of general concern; whereas, if it were to become unmanageable for people to succeed on the tenure track, academia falls apart at the seams. OTOH, stress and substance abuse vulnerability among adjunct faculty have never been matters of general concern for a variety of reasons, among them (1) they are easily replaced, (2) the presence of adjunct faculty is already the sign of the decay of academic life, therefore; the focus should be on pretending we're going to avoid adjuntification rather than addressing calamities that befall adjunct faculty when adjunctification has taken hold (which is just about universal); (3) their job being something that can be integrated into a well adjusted life has already been mostly given up on; therefore (3) solutions available are only individual solutions, i.e. giving up teaching permanantly following high levels of stress, leading to the solution for the group referred to in reason (1.)"

'Therefore, a piece delving into stress levels and substance abuse vulnerability among college faculty should not include anything about adjunct faculty. It should include only data of general interest.'

Wasn't this a thread about hijacking and forum etiquette? Why are we suddenly discussing adjunctification again?

Quote from: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 01:01:57 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 12:44:22 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on November 26, 2020, 12:40:48 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on November 26, 2020, 09:12:17 AM
There's really no reason to discuss adjunct faculty POC concerns on this forum. It's toxic for that. However, occasionally mentioning how the tenure track whiteness is not the savior of the free world that it envisions itself to be might be interesting.
(Changes which sound like "anti-racist"-speak.)

Do you notice that your tone flips when you go from discussing racial issues to discussing faculty issues? In one case, you disparage the victim mentality and blaming others for the problems, whereas in the other case you embrace the victim mentality and blame others for the problems.

Do you notice that the woke, left American tenure track's tone flips, inversely to mine? Do you notice how they, not majority faculty, hold the views that ostensibly represent the well educated?

I'd say they mostly claim that all faculty are victims of the cruel administration and government; so they see themselves more as innocent bystanders.

I could have sworn this was a thread about hijacking and forum etiquette, but suddenly people are complaining about adjunctification and getting cranky about woke culture. Again.


Quote from: ciao_yall on November 26, 2020, 09:35:12 PM
The "ignore user" functions has changed my life.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just sayin'.

Yup.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: Caracal on November 27, 2020, 04:16:09 AM
Quote from: mamselle on November 26, 2020, 10:05:47 AM
<<If you (or anyone) can point to an example of a thread that got clearly and permanently hijacked I'd be interested to see it.>>

When someone tries to re-enter material more germane to the overall thread topic and the other three or four hijacking posters keep going back to their pet peeves, it gets really tiresome.

Mostly, after three off-topic posts, I just give up and stop looking at the thread. So it's hijacked from then on from my perspective. I might try a couple times to re-route it back, but if the hijacking persists, I consider the thread dead (a la Fiona of blessed CHE memory) and just read the ones that haven't been so infected yet.

I teach my music students not to be Johnny- or Jill-one notes. I want expressive range and a variety of tones from them, and I expect the same of an academic discussion.



M.

That's well point, when I was in my early years in grad school I would often approach everything I read through the lens of my own embryonic research concerns. If it touched on things I worked on, but didn't spend much time on them then I thought it was ignoring a crucial issue. If it approached the subject differently than my work, it was garbage. In general, I was sure that my area of interest was criminally ignored

Maybe that's a necessary stage for a grad student-but its embarrassing to think about now. I still think what I study probably should take a more prominent role in the field, but that doesn't mean that it is useful or helpful for me to rant about that in response to every other thing I read.

More to the point, I really don't think adjunct issues are underrepresented on here. Quite a few of us are adjuncts and things directly about adjuncts get posted all the time. There's a poster who tends to hijack those discussions, but the best approach is to ignore that kind of thing-not replicate it.

Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on November 27, 2020, 04:42:52 AM
Quote from: ergative on November 27, 2020, 01:19:31 AM

Wasn't this a thread about hijacking and forum etiquette? Why are we suddenly discussing adjunctification again?


It's not a call for stricter etiquette in that sense. It's an inquiry into what constitutes thread hijacking and what doesn't.

Quote from: ergative on November 27, 2020, 01:19:31 AM

Quote from: ciao_yall on November 26, 2020, 09:35:12 PM
The "ignore user" functions has changed my life.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just sayin'.

Yup.

Doesn't seem like it.

I have work today. Many hours will pass before I post again. Enjoy.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: marshwiggle on November 27, 2020, 06:00:58 AM
It's interesting to note that even as people debate whether this thread has been hijacked or not, the ratio of views to replies is (as of when I write this) about 10 to 1. Presumably if many people were using "ignore" OR simply saw this as a slanging match and gave up on it, the ratio would approach 1. (Since people who are logged in will have the flag to indicate if there are new posts, then those "views" aren't people checking to see if there's anything new.)

Summary: Even apparently hijacked threads still get read a lot. So maybe people who read but don't post frequently are getting more out of these threads than we realize.

Question for admins: Is there any correlation between the use of "ignore user" and the user's own posting frequency? In other words, do people who don't post frequently use that feature any more or less than the frequent posters?

Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: polly_mer on November 27, 2020, 06:06:51 AM
Ah, Mahagonny, you're not using the Ignore User function correctly if it hasn't changed your life. 

Someone mentioned the in-post quotes sidestepping the ignore.  That only works if someone writes something worth quoting.  If it's truly just noise, almost never does someone get quoted for a response.  When it does happen, it's mostly worth reading.  Even a stopped clock is right enough twice a day.

Why are we discussing adjuncts again?  As much as Mahagonny is wrong on the details and what could be done, Mahagonny is not wrong that adjuncts are often overlooked when discussing higher ed.  Unlike Parasauralophus' example of things that aren't directly related to actions people could take in higher ed to address the problems of higher ed, keeping adjuncts in mind and then acting accordingly is something people here could do as individuals to address the problems of higher ed.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: polly_mer on November 27, 2020, 06:17:17 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on November 27, 2020, 06:00:58 AM
Question for admins: Is there any correlation between the use of "ignore user" and the user's own posting frequency? In other words, do people who don't post frequently use that feature any more or less than the frequent posters?

I have not done that research and it's not interesting enough to me to devote time to it in the near future.

What I have noticed (definitely subject to selective memory) is the people most likely to repeat already made points on a thread with no nod to previous posts are those who are familiar enough names, but not power users, which could indicate using ignore for some users.  The power users often post a summary of standard advice, which may indicate ignoring some users or that may simply indicate having limited time/patience on well trodden material.  I certainly skim to see if something fabulous has been written and then write the standard response if there's nothing fabulously new.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: AvidReader on November 27, 2020, 06:20:07 AM
There's really no reason to discuss cat owners' concerns on this academic forum, either. However, extensively discussing the whims and quirks of forumites' particular cats clearly brings pleasure to many, and sometimes spills over onto other threads. That's fine too.

On a more related note, I do like it when obvious digressions are split off onto new threads (as recently happened on a politics thread, I think, but I can't find it now), because it makes it easier to find information later and also to stay abreast of the topics that are more interesting to me as they occur.

AR.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: Hibush on November 27, 2020, 06:31:18 AM
I'm not particularly worries about thread hijacking. Sometimes the discussion heads in a direction that doesn't interest me, but I can ignore things that don't interest me. On perennial threads, like CiDFS, the discussion will come back to the central theme. A new thread may die if it only raises a few original ideas and then devolves into repetition of some well-worn themes. That's ok.  A substantive tangent can be moved to a new thread, which is a helpful technical fix.

The Appalachia tangent, for example, may raise something of interest yet, since there are some additional regional trends that are causing that region's colleges to be more prone to dire financial straits. A little hillbilly belittlement and defense along the way is to be expected, because that is an American tradition as old as Appalachia. I shall resist adding to it.

The forum has people with a variety of perspectives, and who are willing to stick to those. That is a rare and valuable situation these days. I learn from that variety; even the perspective I'll continue to disagree with. We all have higher-ed in common, so we share some values about learning being a good thing.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: dr_codex on November 27, 2020, 06:57:07 AM
Since I'm one of the people quoted in the original post, I will ring in here.

I'm going to try out the "ignore" function and see if it helps, as several of you have advised.

dc
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: apl68 on November 30, 2020, 07:52:11 AM
This thread is now hijacked!  I'm directing it to fly to Alaska.  Because it seems like it would be an interesting place to visit, and I've heard it's lovely this time of year.
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: little bongo on November 30, 2020, 01:08:20 PM
I think it comes down to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's 1964 definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it."

Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: mahagonny on December 08, 2020, 08:45:13 AM
But it appears that the forum has gotten quiet lately. Does this mean if you can't hijack, no one wants to play?
Title: Re: Thread hijacking
Post by: Ruralguy on December 08, 2020, 09:04:25 AM
I don't necessarily mind threadjacking, I just don't want to go around in circles on the same topics over and over.