http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopic.php?p=14341
became off topic about some star trek NPCs and some people criticized this Ultim wrote:
the problem with thread hijacking is that it shifts the scope from important topics to new ones before the old topic is really finished. the new topic goes on while the old one has never been discussed completely.Why the heck is thread-hijacking given a bad wrap? If we are confined to talk about a narrow scope, we can never be creative and will never make anything interesting.
another problem is that many interesting and important discussion can't be found that easily when they are created as an off topic discussion in a thread with a subject line that has nothing to do with it.
when a thread becomes off topic with a new topic that is too interesting to be ignored you should open a new thread for this new topic. the best way to start it is by quoting the off topic posts like i am doing here. you should then put a link from the old thread to the new one and ask the people to discuss the new topic there. that way both topics can be discussed separated and under meaningful subject lines.