Governing Off Topicness

[Gary]

Hmm.. I'm sort of intrested in how everyone governs their board when a topic goes off topic.

Do you strictly keep everyone on topic and warn those that go off topic?
Allow it every now and then?
Dont care about it and let people go off topic whenever?

I treat my members as friends, probably because some of them actually ARE friends. Each topic is like talking to your friends and I see it as if it were a conversation with your friends, and how long do you stay on the same subject when you're with your friends. We dont stay on topic for very long at my place.

What's everyone elses thoughts?

[KGIII]

Yes and no? I put an "off topic" board there and, if need be, move things there. I have only a few mods and the forum is pretty slow right now but, well, that has worked for me. My members aren't my members. I am their janitor. I put it there and they opt to use it.

[Gary]

True, I have an off topic board too, where much of the random stuff goes. Maybe I wasnt clear. Basically, when a topic is about subject A, and then it moves onto subject B, do you make people go back to subject A or just leave it.  

[Harro]

Depends a bit.
If it's in the more "serious" subforums I try to keep it on topic.
But just a little offtopic doesn't really matters though.
If it's somewhat related to the main topic it's fine for me

[H]

If the offtopic-ness () can be split it then that is what I tend to do. Otherwise just leave the topic as is and try and steer it in the correct direction

[Deaks]

for PF it depends on a few things, if it goes off topic usually one of the members will put it back afterwhile or a staff member.

[Isaac]

I think in the early stages of a forum, it's important to let this happen, to a certain degree.  You want your members to get to know each other and to not feel like they have to stick to the subject at hand 'or else'.  However, too much off topicness can be a problem, and really drag down the quality of the forum.

[KGIII]

I personally feel that conversations naturally progress to new subjects. If it goes so far off topic that it becomes an entirely new conversation then, in my personal forum, I will split it off though more often then not someone will do on their own so before I need to it seems.

[Niteblade]

Perhaps the admin can add something to the signature that reads something like

:: Is this conversation going off topic? ::

And link it to some documentation.

[Gary]

Perhaps the admin can add something to the signature that reads something like

:: Is this conversation going off topic? ::

And link it to some documentation.

Thats one way of doing it.