Fiona Moore wrote:
Now, what bothers me personally about serious (like Neil I'd avoid the word "intelligent") conversations going silly is that often it's not a natural progression, it's a hijacking. To give a (semi-)fictitious example, some people can be having a discussion on, say, themes of class struggle in "Weapon," and then somebody else, who hasn't participated at all up until this point, will launch in and say "Ooh, I think Carnell's accent is dead sexy! What's everyone else think?" And there's the whole prospect of further serious discussion gone to pot.
Why? "Thread hijacking" is a complaint I've seen other places as well, and it's just not something I really understand, so this is a completely serious question. IMO one of the great things about e-mail as a communications medium is its non-linear nature. If person A is talking about subject 1, and person B wants to develop that into a discussion of subject 2, and person C wants to jump in and make a point about subject 3... Well, it's entirely possible to have *both* conversations going on at the same time, and if person A isn't interested in subject 3, he can ignore it an concentrate on subject 2, or go back to subject 1. It's quite different from sitting around in the pub talking, in that respect. So I honestly, truly, don't understand why people get annoyed about it (well, except when the subject lines don't get changed, which I fully understand can be annoying). Somebody explain why it bothers people, please, so I know what I should avoid doing...
ObB7: Um... Do they have something like the internet in the Federation, do you think?