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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 9662928" data-attributes="member: 7808">IMNSHO, this is the opposite of the problem most people have.  Branching can be a good thing.  When people post information that is actually new, interesting, or innovative, threads can be very long and still be very interesting.However, the problem that the OP is talking about isn't branching.  It's circling.  Whirlpooling.  Death spiraling.  There are certain topics that seem to pull in the exact same arguements with the exact same talking points and the exact same posters over and over again.  Over time, I've actually become suspicious that there may be posters who keyword search for certain terms, then latch onto threads like a rabid badger as soon as they see one of their pet topics get mentioned in passing, pulling the thread into their favorite death spiral with no regard to what the thread was originally about.Generally speaking, I don't mind when people have particular interests.  But there times/people on ENWorld that make it feel like you're not allowed to even mention certain words without risking a thread being derailed and sucked into one of these zombie circle talks.  I've modified my vocabulary here to avoid problems.  And an ignore list helps, too, of course.  But it only takes one member of a clique to latch on and the rest of the group will show up and swarm.</blockquote>