Comment repost: How is posting to my own journal derailing
Read 
wistfuljane's entry against narrowing the definition of derailing.
Whine about the impossibility of a post in one's own journal being derailing.
Get ticked off zvi: Do you understand that your post in your journal about this tangent makes up a part of the larger imbroglio? Do you understand that people, in following the larger imbroglio, will re-direct their attention to your post, because you have positioned it as being a part of the larger discussion at hand? Do you understand that that focus pull is exactly what is being objected to as derailing?
I'm honestly puzzled as to why it is so difficult to understand how not to write up such a thing as derailing. If it's something that's truly tangential to the imbroglio at hand, but the imbroglio just happened to make you think of it, then leave the larger imbroglio completely out of it. If there were, for instance, an olive imbroglio, which made you think about fatty fruits in general, and avocado in particular, and that lovely avocado ice cream you got this one time at la la la down memory lane, start your post with the avocado ice cream and stay silent about the olives. Olives don't matter to you, and your post wouldn't matter to anyone who cares about olives, if only you hadn't explicitly made the connection.
On the other hand, if you want to talk about something that intersects with the discussion at hand, but is not the thing people are actually upset about; in the discussion of homophobia and m/m original fiction, maybe you wanted to talk about the differences between m/m original fiction and slash fanfiction and the fact that the protagonists of the former are generally gay while the protagonists of the latter are rarely so, then you wait. Wait until the discussion of homophobia and m/m fiction dies down, so that your discussion can be a discussion of the topic you are actually interested in, and not be understood as a sly way to pull focus from a discussion you've chosen not to participate in. Because, again, that focus pulling, where your topic is something that can reasonably be expected to be noticed by those discussing the subject of the imbroglio, but which is actually orthagonal to the imbroglio, would be derailing the larger discussion.
Because if you take up a similar subject in a similar time period of a discussion which is already occurring in multiple journals, simply posting it in your own journal doesn't remove the context of the larger multi-journal discussion.
Don't have time to reframe to be a proper single post, so, this is what you get, dear readers.
ETA in additional commenting:
Here's the thing, derailing* is not whether someone has a relevant/interesting/excellent point to contribute to a conversation or being "on-topic." It's not about intention or space. It's about shifting the discussion away from a central focus, but more importantly, it's about deflecting the focus of attention away from the affected part(ies). WistfulJane
What you're suggesting by that statement, it seems to me -- and do correct me if I'm getting this wrong -- is that for you, the point of a discussion is not examining an issue that a person has brought up, but rather paying focused attention to the person who has raised the issue.
phoebe_zeitgeist, in response
my thoughts on yaoi You are understanding the person who begins the discussion as a single participant, and wistfuljane is understanding the person as a member of a class or classes, and the pov of the people in that class or classes is an integral part of the discussion at hand. Her point is not that the discussion must revolve/resolve around jane's particular feelings, but that if she starts a discussion about racism in the selection of manwha for translation, then (a) the subject positions of members of the Asian diaspora is an integral part of that discussion and (b) the majoritarian, racist, reflexive position is almost certainly not a novel train of thought in the community of people who read manwha in translation, and does not need further explication at this juncture.
It's the difference between seeing these social issues as personal problems and systemic ones.
Final emphasis added.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.
wistfuljane's entry against narrowing the definition of derailing.
Whine about the impossibility of a post in one's own journal being derailing.
Get ticked off zvi: Do you understand that your post in your journal about this tangent makes up a part of the larger imbroglio? Do you understand that people, in following the larger imbroglio, will re-direct their attention to your post, because you have positioned it as being a part of the larger discussion at hand? Do you understand that that focus pull is exactly what is being objected to as derailing?
I'm honestly puzzled as to why it is so difficult to understand how not to write up such a thing as derailing. If it's something that's truly tangential to the imbroglio at hand, but the imbroglio just happened to make you think of it, then leave the larger imbroglio completely out of it. If there were, for instance, an olive imbroglio, which made you think about fatty fruits in general, and avocado in particular, and that lovely avocado ice cream you got this one time at la la la down memory lane, start your post with the avocado ice cream and stay silent about the olives. Olives don't matter to you, and your post wouldn't matter to anyone who cares about olives, if only you hadn't explicitly made the connection.
On the other hand, if you want to talk about something that intersects with the discussion at hand, but is not the thing people are actually upset about; in the discussion of homophobia and m/m original fiction, maybe you wanted to talk about the differences between m/m original fiction and slash fanfiction and the fact that the protagonists of the former are generally gay while the protagonists of the latter are rarely so, then you wait. Wait until the discussion of homophobia and m/m fiction dies down, so that your discussion can be a discussion of the topic you are actually interested in, and not be understood as a sly way to pull focus from a discussion you've chosen not to participate in. Because, again, that focus pulling, where your topic is something that can reasonably be expected to be noticed by those discussing the subject of the imbroglio, but which is actually orthagonal to the imbroglio, would be derailing the larger discussion.
Because if you take up a similar subject in a similar time period of a discussion which is already occurring in multiple journals, simply posting it in your own journal doesn't remove the context of the larger multi-journal discussion.
Don't have time to reframe to be a proper single post, so, this is what you get, dear readers.
ETA in additional commenting:
Here's the thing, derailing* is not whether someone has a relevant/interesting/excellent point to contribute to a conversation or being "on-topic." It's not about intention or space. It's about shifting the discussion away from a central focus, but more importantly, it's about deflecting the focus of attention away from the affected part(ies). WistfulJane
What you're suggesting by that statement, it seems to me -- and do correct me if I'm getting this wrong -- is that for you, the point of a discussion is not examining an issue that a person has brought up, but rather paying focused attention to the person who has raised the issue.
phoebe_zeitgeist, in response
my thoughts on yaoi You are understanding the person who begins the discussion as a single participant, and wistfuljane is understanding the person as a member of a class or classes, and the pov of the people in that class or classes is an integral part of the discussion at hand. Her point is not that the discussion must revolve/resolve around jane's particular feelings, but that if she starts a discussion about racism in the selection of manwha for translation, then (a) the subject positions of members of the Asian diaspora is an integral part of that discussion and (b) the majoritarian, racist, reflexive position is almost certainly not a novel train of thought in the community of people who read manwha in translation, and does not need further explication at this juncture.
It's the difference between seeing these social issues as personal problems and systemic ones.
Final emphasis added.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.