...excessive off-topic posts, why aren't the people that caused those off-topic posts being punished?

Instead the punishment falls on the original poster who gets their thread closed and is locked out of creating new threads for a while. The original poster has no way to prevent these off-topic posts because they can't control what other people post.

My recently closed thread is just one of many examples. I have seen many interesting threads that were closed because:

- Taurean was offended by something minor and felt the need to stretch that over 5-10 pages
- death_knight pretended to be vegan and took over the thread
- DeafViking had a 20 page back and forth of "you're cringe" -> "no u" with someone random
etc., there are many ways that can happen.

I even tried to deescalate:
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=100957408&f=27&p=646246105

There is nothing else I could have done. And the thread just started to become interesting. We were admiring a cute autistic parrot, started joking a bit about him having a jalapeno in his claw. There was some potential for other interesting stories and anecdotes.
And even though this last thread wasn't that important, I have seen quite a few interesting threads being closed because they were taken over with OP having done nothing wrong just because of someone's ego.

I understand that this thread will be closed too because it's meta and I don't know in what capacity or detail mods read GC but it would mean a lot to me if you could rethink how to handle this matter.

If somebody causes excessive off-topic posts in a given thread, punish that specific person (or people), and not the one that created that topic.

General Chat is a really small but fun place and I'm trying my part to add to that fun.

That concludes my Ted Talk, gift baskets are at the door.

This post was edited by diablo_nostalgia on May 11 2023 08:33pm

General Chat has a life all on its own. I barely, if at all, understand nor can I predict General Chat culture/etiquette.

Is it better to see your thread takeoff with off topic posts or to only have enough posts to go 1-2 pages and it gets buried in a day?

ancient chinese proverb

If the off-topic posts get it closed anyway, there is not much point in it taking off that way.
A thread that gets buried after 1-2 pages is fine. If there is no interest in a topic, there is no need to force it.

Threads just shouldn't be deprived of their chance because of someone's ego where they hijack a topic and make it about them.

This post was edited by diablo_nostalgia on May 11 2023 08:55pm

I do agree with that. Honestly, first post was TLDR, but from what's been going on around here, I think it would be best to just leave the topic open so the conversation can eventually run it's course and potentially even end.

An argument starts, gets interrupted with the thread closing, then eventually starts up again in someone else's thread. Just to eventually get cut and start over again somewhere else.