My advice is to do what I have done here:

1. Hit the "quote" button for the post you are wishing to answer.
2. Highlight and copy the entire post.
3. Close the reply window and navigate to another thread that IS on topic.
4. Create a new topic if the subject is truly unique
5. Hit "Post a Reply" in the correct, on-topic thread.
6. Paste the quote you brought over from the other thread.
7. Complete your reply.

The thread you have selected as the correct, on-topic thread will appear as an "active" topic with "new" posts and others will see your new comment.

And if there isn't one, just shut your yap or start a single-post thread for every arguably tangential subject. That way we can have millions of single-post threads

i also note that I marked my one and only post to that "hijack" offtopic before anyone started yelling about threadjacks. So I could respond profanely in kind to that moving the posts post, but I guess the civility rule applies to us plebeians only.

Ya mean like this?


Yes.

That's okay. It gives everyone something else to bitch about during birther lulls.

Works too. Also.

Raicha, that's a very nicely written little help topic. IMO.

I would encourage folks to make use of this technique especially in these latter days of the Georgia Challenge thread, as it has threatened to become a default dumping ground for all things birther. Just because some nutwhack responds to the Malihi/Kemp decision, does not mean it belongs there. Please consider if it would be better in Birther Potpourri, WND, P&E, The Theory behind Conspiracy Theory, or what-have-you.

YMMV, I am not green, and hypocrisy disclaimers apply.

And I Fogbow.

That comment, evidently, egregious enough of a violation to qualify for full censorship and removal by mods within five minutes of the posting.

Yes.

!	raicha wrote:
	Look 5 posts up in this thread and you will find that it was not removed at all. It was moved to an on-topic discussion.

PM is also a nice way to continue conversations.

Thanks for the clarification, raicha. I take back my , with a side of humility.

Actually, yes, I do suggest a new topic.

I would also add that "clarification" posts directed to ONE individual in the discussion, particularly of the "you didn't mean that insultingly to my people, right?" type, are definitely PM worthy rather than threadjack-worthy. In my arrogant opinion.

One-off jokes don't bug me much. (I'm guilty of those, as well.) I particularly don't mind those when they are PART of a substantive post.

A lot of this is common sense and courtesy.

Thanks for this topic, Raicha. I'll try not to rant much in it.

Hypocrisy, I'm sure I haz it.

Anyone have any good recipes for guacamole?

Right. It's either that or limericks or double-dactyls.

Happersett, Happersett!
Alchemist Mario
tries to forge precedents
out of thin air.

Clearly the question of
transmutability
never occurs to him
nor does he care.

No worries, jt, nothing personal. I went out looking for a straight line. You know, wrong place, wrong time.

The mods are (rightly) concerned about threadjacking in "hot" topics.* The Georgia challenges, for example, are still developing, and people don't want wade through ten pages of a "fascinating" discussion about unladen swallows** to learn if there's any news about Georgia.


* To threadjack my own post:




** DON'T!

My personal answer to ZtG is that it's a gray line. If Tolland's post is already tangential (or off-topic), then your Eurotangent might be best in a new thread, even if it ends up being a one-off.

But I really appreciate the global perspectives of ZtG, PP, RTH, Somerset, GG, and others, and if they're in response to an on-topic post, but themselves arguably tangential, I think they are great in the original thread.

I know others feel differently, and would rather a discussion of the derivation of Azerbaijani names be in a "Name Derivations" thread, than in the Georgia thread where birthers are calling Malihi a Syrian Muslin.

Like I said ... a gray line.

OMG -- I love double dactyls!

I'd been trying to figure one out, but hadn't come up with a good opening pattern, and "Higgledy Piggledy" is such a cop-out. "Happersett, Happersett!" Yes!

For me, the trick is to come up with your six-syllable double-dactyl word first and work outwards from there. (In the one above, the six-syllable word in conforming meter is transmutability.) If you begin by writing the first strophe it's way hard to find a long word that works by the time you get to writing the second strophe. And, yeah, I agree with you about "Higgledy Piggledy" being a cop-out. I never use it.

Well, hoping that this is on topic for a topic about responding to off-topic posts .... I've already tied myself into a knot, you see. But just in case, I'll put it in an off-topic block ...

I like it, Ducky. It reads quite nicely and packs a humorous wallop directed at your former employer! "Clackety packety" is quite good, IMO.

You meter is spot-on too. Even though most Americans will tend to ellide "machinery" to three syllables in everyday speech, it isn't too much to ask the reader to hear it as fully four syllables, so I wouldn't quibble about that. I would, however, move "the" from S2L2 ("the gremlins") to the end of the preceeding line.

But yeah, I'd have to say that omission of a six-syllable single word is more or less a deal-breaker, and I'm afraid any purist would agree. IMO, that isn't being overly picky since it's the most difficult chore in coming up with a fresh double-dactyl.

And if you REALLY want to be a purist, I've heard some say that the long word cannot have been used previously in any other double-dactyl. Except for famous ones, I'm not sure how one is supposed to prove that, but good poets avoid reusing words occuring in well-known examples of the form.

I just want to say how much I appreciate the greenies. Yeah, even though I've been occasionally scolded with the big '!", I still appreciate your efforts. Thanks.

I agree with ya, mimi.

When I find myself right on the bubble,
Mother rarely comes to me
Screeching in derision, let it be.
And in my sourest snarkness,
She is standing right in front of me
Seeking an excision, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Shine unto tomorrow, let it be.

Yeah, we got us a great group of greenies, we do.

I think this may about the time for somebody to post a recipe...

Nope, sorry. Do that in the Hijack thread.