Ever have a thread of yours--- just totally get away from you?

I of course am talking about the thread I posted yesterday.
"Texas GOP endorses ‘treatment’ for homosexuality"

What I was hoping for was a debate on just how invasive one political party has become.
now they want to homogenize all of America so we all act and think as properly proscribed by the GOP...

and yet my thread has now become a debate on
is it possible to ""Fix"" a gay person?
Or do ""Gay"" persons even need ""Fixing""?

I don't know where I lost it but 'da-yam'.... there's no getting it back on track.

a reply to: HardCorps

Getting a thread to go the way you intended is on par with herding cats.

I have posted lots of threads they rarely if ever go the direction I hope. At first I tried to steer the conversations on course but that gets tiring and rarely works.

Now I just post the info give my opinion then watch for a while to see if there is a conversation worth having. Sometimes I get tired of waiting for some good replies so I go off to do other things and when I return I do not even recognize the thread anymore.

Oh well threads are funny things.

At least yours is still open. I started a thread on the same topic the day before and it got so bad that the thread was deleted.

a reply to: HardCorps
My most frustrating experience in that respect was a thread on "the letters to the seven churches" in Revelation, when one stubborn individual took it over in order to insist that his own Chinese Buddhist sect was one of the churches in question.
I had to abandon the thread in the end and shift discussion over to a previous thread on the same chapter.

a reply to: buster2010

Between us...
if the mods wanted to "Delete" my thread I wouldn't care.
On the plus side the name calling has been "Civil" but it does get tiresome.

originally posted by: HardCorps
I of course am talking about the thread I posted yesterday.
"Texas GOP endorses ‘treatment’ for homosexuality"

What I was hoping for was a debate on just how invasive one political party has become.
now they want to homogenize all of America so we all act and think as properly proscribed by the GOP....

First of all, if you weren't spewing utter nonsense to begin with, maybe your thread would have had a clear direction in which to go.

"One politcal party"? It's the Texas GOP, not the entire party, and the platform was endorsed as a whole without particular points being debated. I am quite positive that there are as many Republicans suprised at this as Democrats. And they do not want to "homogenize America". That is your opinion, and you should state it as such rather than projecting it onto the political party that you clearly oppose.

Here's a quote for you to clear things up regarding this HUGE HUGE story on ALL Liberal media outlets.:

“There’s a very, very small group of people who want to keep the party in the past. We were here today to try to pull the party into the future,”
-Rudy Oeftering, vice president of the gay conservative group Metroplex Republicans, told the Associated Press.

Yes, there are a few old school holdouts, but they do NOT represent the whole or even a majority of the GOP.

originally posted by: HardCorps
I of course am talking about the thread I posted yesterday.
"Texas GOP endorses ‘treatment’ for homosexuality"

What I was hoping for was a debate on just how invasive one political party has become.
now they want to homogenize all of America so we all act and think as properly proscribed by the GOP...

and yet my thread has now become a debate on
is it possible to ""Fix"" a gay person?
Or do ""Gay"" persons even need ""Fixing""?

I don't know where I lost it but 'da-yam'.... there's no getting it back on track.

Hey...
I addressed your topic.
I found it ironic that a party and movement that preaches "less government intrusion" would even take issue with what goes on in one's own home even though it doesn't hurt anyone. I tried to bring it back on topic.
It did get ridiculous, though. As the old saying goes...Don't feed the trolls.

Not to de-rail your question and thread, but it's semi-related.

What makes threads disappear? Is it just the mods that can delete them?

I was just following one this past hour about the Wal-Mart cctv footage of the shooters and it was deleted. Don't they usually post something about reviewing it? Is it because the nature of the footage?

Lets talk about something else everybody to show Hardcorps he is not imagining this. Not many times we get invited to hijack a thread to help someone.

a reply to: HardCorps

All threads have the potential to spin out of control...

Notice the group that is expert on spinning a thread to their own particular brand of ideology? It's almost as if
they work in concert and plan to disrupt a discussion that varies from their political/religious stance. Even some mods are guilty of this or just trashing it outright.

a reply to: the owlbear

You know who I'm referring too... thanks for tying BTW
I too tried to shift it back but that just wasn't gonna happen
sighs

a reply to: rickymouse

You and me buddy---I'm with ya---
lets hijack this thread and talk about 'Boobies"!

something worthy of conversation!

There's a phenomenon. It occurs at certain times of the day. I kid you not.

There are also some topics and personalities here better avoided. I almost wish there were a FAQ about this.

I try to remember I'm a guest here.

I wouldn't mind threads going off topic except for the fact that they always seem to replace the topic with some argument that's been had a million times before. As in the OP's example. Or the 9/11 Museum thread that began as a discussion about excluding information about WTC7. And then just became another argument about WTC7 theories.

Perhaps they should change the name, or at least separate 'discussion' threads from 'debate' threads. Something in the title perhaps, and have different rationale for the acceptance of replies meandering according to that criteria. A debate is far more grounded in topic than a discussion right?

There's people who are employed to push public opinion in the desired direction, hence any thread they deem worthy of their attention will go in the direction they choose.

It has alot to do with what forum it is placed in.

originally posted by: HardCorps
a reply to: the owlbear

You know who I'm referring too... thanks for tying BTW
I too tried to shift it back but that just wasn't gonna happen
sighs

Always Friend...
Respect and best wishes...
I always look forward to what you have to say because you are one of the open minds on ATS...we may not always agree 100% but man, you're willing to keep the open mind and for that, I tip my hat and will always respect what you have to say.

Mine usually gets derailed from "Google Nazis" that don't have any idea about what they are talking about.

The first person usually Googles the topic and throws out the very first link Google provides to try to debunk the thread. When actually the information is not accurate. People read the comment and star it without doing their own research and people overlook the content.

It is quite frustrating to say the least.

I used to take it seriously and spent time making threads. But as the years go by and the jackarses that are experts in everything gets worse, I care less.

Why spend the time making thought provoking informative posts when they get buried by bullcrap.

I especially love it when people try to debunk personal experiences. They were there the whole time. I have changed over my 3 1/2 years on this site.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
Perhaps they should change the name, or at least separate 'discussion' threads from 'debate' threads. Something in the title perhaps, and have different rationale for the acceptance of replies meandering according to that criteria. A debate is far more grounded in topic than a discussion right?

I'm afraid that might just lead to endless arguments about what's a discussion and what's a debate. And the worst kind of topic drift is when it drifts to an argument about terms.

The only thing I've seen that works is moving the off topic conversation to another thread. Even if this means creating a new thread just for it. Other forums do this. It can also keep pinned threads alive for people who want to endlessly discuss the same issue, day after day, year after year.