Experimenting with keeping threads on topic

[3D Sunset]

By asking this question, am I on topic?

Yes, thank you.

As far as I am concerned, since this is a forum centered around the concept of freedom and growth/learning, discussion may be allowed to evolve naturally. As long as our goal is learning, perhaps the movement of a conversation is something to be embraced, and not enforced. Each individual gets a vote on where the discussion will proceed, by adding his/her own comments to the discussion. That process is already built into the nature of communication, so there's not much we need to do.

What you say is certainly true, but even so the issue becomes one of accessing or indexing those topics that are of interest to the readers. Here's an example: When I grew up there were only 4 television stations (ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS), so it was very easy to determine if something was on that I wanted to watch. Just turn on the TV and flip through the 4 channels. Yes or no, done deal. The same was true when the forum was younger. There were just a few threads and a few posters and one could quickly browse through what had been posted since our last visit.

Today though, it is somewhat more difficult to tell because of the increased number of threads, number of posters, and complexity of each thread. Sort of like being faced with 500 TV channels now on cable. Compounding this issue is the fact that each thread may contain multiple unrelated topics. So the question is: how does one know what topics are being discussed without laboriously reading each post?

3D Sunset