There has been a lot of dissatisfaction expressed in recent months, on the site and in e-mails to the moderators, regarding irrelevant/off-topic comments. It’s also important that Brock provides a place for people to express their thoughts. To strike a balance, we have installed a “move comment” function, with which we can move a comment to a different thread.
This should help keep things more focused while, at the same time, the person’s comment still appears on the site and discussion can ensue without overwhelming the original, unrelated, thread.
Moving a comment from one thread to another keeps both threads more useful to persons seeking help or information or simply having a coherent discussion on a topic.
We do not intend to eliminate thread drift from the site, just to keep certain threads focused, such as a post that deals with a project or a post focused on a specific type of information but someone posts a comment way off-topic; say, consulate problems on the FATCA thread.
Many topics overlap a lot, so don’t expect perfection — and every one of us undoubtedly has a different sense of just where “on-topic” ends and “off-topic” begins (can’t please everyone all of the time), so you may still see some comments you feel are out of place but to a lesser degree.
Thread drift is inevitable on a site that values sharing of ideas and opinions. It can be pesky and annoying, but sometimes it’s a good thing which expands discussion; and exchanging thoughts is important part of the Brock community. We don’t want to quench that! But this should keep parts of the site on target.