I'm going to weigh in on hijacking. My feelings were hurt when my thread was hijacked, and two people already mentioned on Dr. J's thread how this can happen.

The two people who realized they'd hijacked a thread started a conversation between themselves about something on a thread someone else started. I had this happen to me when I was new here. It happened after I'd already had enough responses to get what I needed out of my post -- but I thought it was silly. Here were two people, writing very brief posts back and forth to each other that involved conversation strictly private and between themselves.

IMO, I also think that using threads for this kind of back and forth conversation is, in general, distracting and should be taken to PM. I understand that others are going to disagree with this. They want to give public thank-yous, etc., to those who have helped them. So, those of you who want to hang me by my thumbnails because you hold this idea dearly -- I respect and understand your position on this.Let me say that again:I respect and understand your position. In fact, I DO THIS SOMETIMES!!! I have, however, been PM'ing more when I just want to say something to someone about a post, that doesn't contribute to the dialogue. Sometimes, the PM seems to mean more to the person than the public post. Of course, posting little tidbits, such as "Thank you. How sweet of you" pumps up one's number of posts so one can quickly rise through the status ranks. But that's an entirely separate matter. I am teaching online now and students are discouraged from posting these kind of distractions to the discussion threads.

Another way of hijacking a thread is posting a reply that <font color="blue">grabs attention away from the poster's original topic.</font> Yes, sometimes a topic slides in a new direction. That's called conversation. But some people are rather skillful at disrupting conversations and always making it about them.

<font color="purple">Here's anexample:</font> Let's say someone asks what people at the Forums do to keep themselves healthy. You're likely to get replies about nutrition, exercise, relaxation, etc. If you post something that is controversial or goes against the grain, such as, <font color="purple">"I think we should all wear aluminum cones on our heads to keep out the electromagnetic radiation,"</font> the conversation is going to switch to people discussing this. Some may think you should check into an ER for professional help right away. Others may believe that aluminum isn't going to do the trick -- we need to wear lead helmets. And others will want to debate what the government should be doing about EMR. A new thread is off and running. Sometimes a person doesn't think about how a comment such as this will be disruptive. But there are also trolls who do it on purpose, to watch the fallout.

I don't think anyone wants to make people feel uncomfortable for inadvertently hijacking a thread. But taking a thread and turning it into a private conversation is something we can self-monitor. It's a little more complex to predict when a response may turn a thread in a new direction. We can't always predict how others will behave.

However, if our post introduces a new idea, I think we can take a moment to consider whether we want people to discuss this new idea or whether it is simply a contribution to the thread. Dollars to donuts, a person who thinks we should wear aluminum cones on our heads has encountered resistance to the idea in the past and knows that putting it out there is a <font color="blue"> "look at me"</font> statement.