Trixie stomps up to the stage and glares at the people out having fun in the park, acting as if nothing of import has happened in our city.

Ahem – I have something to say. I know not many – maybe none – of you will agree with me but I think it needs to be said so listen up!  I just came away from that specialized party spot called OOC and I am a bit perturbed.  Someone in there was looking for advice and/or comments about flavors of ice cream.  On the face of it this was an innocuous request and many had obliged with their favorite ice cream or with outlandish concoctions and other sorts of advice for him having to do with ice cream.  Now it occurs to me that we all love ice cream and have an opinion about what makes a good ice cream.  And yet, there were naysayers there.  Naysayers!!!  About ice cream?  Good Lord! 

Were they really all that upset about ice cream?  It turns out, maybe not.  Some thought it frivolous.  Some, however, pointed to a hidden agenda that might have motivated the discussion and responses.  It appears that there is experience to be gained by voicing your opinion in this party spot called OOC.  The point was made that people were sharing their opinions about ice cream flavors and all that accompanies ice cream in an attempt to gain said experience.  Welllllllllll – holy shit!  If some want to have some fun talking about ice cream – how about we let them.  If you don’t want to talk about ice cream – don’t!  If the Gods decide that discussing a frivolous topic can get you experience that translates into anything useful in this life of ours – then who are we to say they are wrong?  If the Gods then decide we have screwed it all up and take that experience away – so be it.

Trixie pauses a moment to reflect on what she has said thus far and to peek around and see if anyone actually cares.

I have wandered a little in my haste here to speak I fear.  The point I am trying to make is that if you don’t like what someone is saying then you can address that – by all means.  We can have differences of opinions.  This place would be horribly boring if we all agreed with each other on all things.  However, don’t usurp their particular little party venue to chide them once they have ventured forth with something to discuss.  If you want to say the means by which they are operating is wrong – set up your own party venue.

(OOC I just hate when others hijack someone else’s thread to inject their point of view.)

Trixie quickly moves off stage to allow the next thug – errr – person to have their say.  She glances around to see if anyone is waiting to smack her for her effrontery too.  Wouldn’t that be a kick!

Randle stroked his chin as Trixie spoke. His eyebrow arched in interest when the subject of hijacking was raised.

Now that jogs a memory. I remember reading in my grandfather's journals about a band of miscreants called The Council of Supreme Linguists. Their street conversations were constantly shut down by the authorities, so they started hijacking the conversations of others to carry out their evil musings.

Thread pirates, they called themselves, though I'm not quite sure what that means.

Horrendous thing, to completely divert a conversation off topic for your own frivolous means. What were we talking about again?

Oh my god. How did I miss this little gem?

I'm not going to say much here, because I'll be quite honest... My stomach is hurting a tad bit too much from laughter.

Anyway, The best place to 'inject' an opinion on a topic is indeed, with in the topic itself. There is no point in creating a completely new topic to discuss opinions on another topic when the means to do so is already with in the current topic. Not to mention the fact that if you have an opinion on something that someone else is doing and want an opinion from that person, the best place to do it is with in that persons topic. 

The idea behind it is to obviously gather opinions from others and the original speakers themselves as to why your own original opinion is either wrong, right or in-between. Creating another topic would be a waste of space. 

For this reason, I think your feelings of it being a 'hijacking' is completely wrong. Now if I had gone in to that speakers topic and said something ridiculous like "NO, ICE CREAM IS RUBBISH. CANDLY FLOSS IS SO MUCH BETTER. WHAT FLAVOURS ICE CREAM DO YOU ALL LIKE?" and then a bunch of my friends and collegues responded countless times with their favorite candy floss flavours, that would be a hijacking. 

That is not what happened over on OCC Avenue. What happened was an opinion was shared about the topic at hand and people got up set about it. As it turned out though, a lot of people agreed with my opinion and didn't start speaking out about it until I did.