Thread Hijacking

You know mate,there are a lot of old people here with a lot of spare time on their hands and they will reply to any post even if they have nothing constructive or relevant to add.I would think a more youthful forum would stay more on track.

I agree with john, Ha!

Yes, Bandung, you are absolutely right and I am sorry. I do very much share your frustrations as to the, all too often, sidetracking of threads, and in particular the one you refer to above, which I tried to get back "on-topic" three times.

At times though, I tend to feel I am banging my head against the proverbial brick wall, as if I interject I am taken to task by those who feel that threads should be allowed to ramble and wander all over the place, or who wish to indulge their particular topic of the moment.

Agreed we are all human and from time to time get sidetracked a little.

Far too many new threads are started without checking if there is already one on the go, which there very often is! Good examples include: Exchange rates v the baht, Recent visa developments, Coup and Thaksin developments, and retiring to other/alternative countries. We even had 2 Suvarnabhumi airport threads, plus several related ones.

There is also too much speculation, hearsay and unqualified quotes from other Forums, rather than obtaining the information from the relevant authority, - from the "horses mouth" so to speak. The link to the new Immigration Regulations from the Thai Immigration authorities was I am sure far more valuable to us all, than the dozens of speculative postings which we had had, many emotive and many based on hearsay, rumours and material copied from other Forums.

As John says in his post, we seem to have a small nucleus of members who have too much time on their hands - and who tend to reply to every post whether they have any constructive or relevant to add or not! AND who tend to use the Forum as a sort of chat room and post every little development in their lives or wherever in the world, along with the latest thoughts that pop into their heads, as and when they arise.

What is the solution? Well, I realise people like the Udonmap Forum because it is fairly easy going, not too strict and a there is a measure of humour. Nevertheless finding answers to questions, obtaining information, or for newbies researching things, does become quite a chore, - unless topics are clearly labelled and the thread contents relate to the topic in question. So it is important to stay on topic.

Maybe members should also be reminded to look at the different internal Forums and the topics listed thereunder, before starting yet another new topic.

There is in fact a chat room, which I am hoping we can draw members attention to, so that those wanting to chat between themselves about routine daily issues can avail themselves of the chat room.

Well Lee it's your forum maybe the answer is just to cancel anyones activity who uses poor grammar and commits the cardinal sin of interjecting a thought, that is not appropriate for the thread. Or that enters information from another forum, with out checking out all the sources before doing any posting.

Just a thought certainly would solve the problem

Maybe you should start a thread on ''bad manners''.Thread hijacking would only be a small part ,I'm sure!
Everyone could then give themselves a demerit ,when they make a mistake.Better yet,the moderators could keep a list and give warnings like speeding tickets,maybe even publish the weekly results for all to see.

It could take the place of the ''news'' section on the front page,which seems out of date and it hard to see the relevance of some of the articles to expat life anyway!

Then after so many demerits or warnings,the offender can be thrown off the forum!

Then you would have a successful ''newbie'' forum of very serious quality!

It would be interesting to see how many people have always been polite on the forum.

How do you please everyone?Simple ,you can't!This is a small forum,newbies get their answers in yhe first few postings!

Do you want only an info forum?Wait for a newbie to ask a question and then answer it?Maybe locals shouldn't post topics to discuss.Maybe there should not be any discussion ,joking about topics not related to Udon.

I would ask,What is the big deal?Is the way the forum going now,causing a slowing in the growth of the forum,are the advertisers complaining or dropping off,are the moderators overworked,Is the forum ready to collapse??

Then all jokes would be off topic,most ''tubers'' also I think the topics get pretty good representation!Maybe you shouldn't make it so easy for people to click on the last posts.Then everyone would read the heading everytime and not just react to comments on the last post!

Maybe you could set the site up so the topic was in every reply box of the thread?

Lee I didn't create the topic, what does this say.

In some cases the text may not be well written but the bottom line is normally obvious and well meaning. Looking at the quality of grammar and spelling on UdonMap makes it obvious that I and many of us are not literary experts but this is no excuse for some to use this fault

Since another thread was required and I dutiful started one. Maybe it would surfice just to get rid Bkkstan and myself ( per the other thread). Since we are the culprits. Hey and while your at it might as well dump beermonkey to. After all he is top the top poster who actually does participate. But he is a wise a guy and who isn't on here from time to time.

See what happens I did a directed started another thread and what was going here just spilled over so whats the point of another thread

I just don't what all the fuss is about, no one is forced to read anything. Don't like what I got say see my name don't read it how hard can that be.

I think you guys had an wonderful idea, hasn't worked on Thai Visa doubt that it will here. There is no way that threads stay directly on topic there.

I thought it was a major break through when people treated being resaonably kind and respectful of each other on here.

But that doesn't seemed to have lasted long.