This old chestnut is a denizen of every forum, it seems. First, the thing about "hijacking" threads is that the great glory of a natter on the internet is that threads wander everywhere in a most democratic manner. I love it when I start a thread and it gets "hijacked". The second element is the lament for the lost golden age (which never existed), since when it is claimed (with little evidence) that good people have been "driven away". Thirdly, of course, is the claim, again to be seen on many a board, that it's just a handful of bastards who are wrecking the whole thing, a claim never accompanied, of course, by the naming of names. Well I've been on a number of forums where I've been embroiled in controversy (you'd never guess, of course), but there is a uniqueness about this one: the bigots, the homophobes, the liars, the revisionists, the racists, the fundamentalists and the downright unbalanced and deluded are either indulged or treated with muteness from the moderators. The handful of people who loudly resist them, on the other hand, are generally the people here who are vilified. Before one contemplates which of these two groups is the more distasteful, one should ask oneself which of the groups is actually responsible for dragging the place down.