ENantiodromia

[Lanefan]

Hey, at least it's better - marginally - than ENtropy...

Lan-"not disENchanted yet"-efan

 

[Stumblewyk]

Another forum I've frequented for years actually gives an honorary award at the end of the year for the person who derails the most threads (or seems to, anyway) during the course of that year.

Originally, it was intended as a snarky, sarcastic way to say "Hey, stay on topic, bubs." It's quickly devolved into a competition to see to who could destroy the most topics, and not happy to stop there, to see how quickly they could be derailed.

 

[TarionzCousin]

A common result is that this turns into a debate about whether 4E is or is not D&D (to me).

Yeah, that's become endemic to this place. [sblock]Hey-O!

[/sblock]

 

[Umbran]

ENantiodromia: The principle whereby Every Single Thread Ever on EN World inevitably turns into a conversation about something completely unrelated (often the opposite) of the original post, and often resulting in a much longer thread than the original topic would have ever garnered.

I think you're confusing enantiodromia (the arising of opposition) with topic drift (the tendency for the topic of a thread to change over time).

 

[ourchair]

ENantiodromia: The principle whereby Every Single Thread Ever on EN World inevitably turns into a conversation about something completely unrelated (often the opposite) of the original post, and often resulting in a much longer thread than the original topic would have ever garnered.

A common result is that this turns into a debate about whether 4E is or is not D&D (to me).

I think Every Single Thread About 4E Ever on Enworld rapidly devolves into a metagame about WotC as a whole.

 

[Stormonu]

To me, there is also tenitus - the propensity for a thread to lose any meaningful use by about the 10th page, and to just devolve into entrenched bickering after said time.

 

[Mercurius]

I think you're confusing enantiodromia (the arising of opposition) with topic drift (the tendency for the topic of a thread to change over time).

Actually, I tried to include both, which is why I said "completely unrelated (often the opposite)". How about ENantiodriftomia?

To me, there is also tenitus - the propensity for a thread to lose any meaningful use by about the 10th page, and to just devolve into entrenched bickering after said time.

Actually, it would be an interesting (if tedious) study to look at threads with 10+ pages, figure out the average total number of unique posters and then see how many of them remain after 10+ pages. What I've observed is that most 10+ page threads end up with 3-4 (or so) people bickering about a fine point that is only vaguely related to the original post.

We're a funny bunch, aren't we?

 

[Relique du Madde]

We're a funny bunch, aren't we?

No, because the same thing happens to some degree IN ALMOST EVERY WEBSITE FORUM I've ever visited, and it also happens in normal conversations. So in reality, it's just natural part of the conversation which people rarely notice outside of a textual media.