Derailing

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You may be looking for the Sentinel novel, Derailed.

Synonyms: Derail
See also: Meta, Metadiscussion, Fight Derailing
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Derailing is a term used within fandoms as well as in general use to describe the act of re-directing or diverting the topic of a conversation.

When the discussion is about racism, homophobia, or other social justice topics, the act of derailing is seen as an attempt to divert the conversational path onto a tangential issue more palatable to the derailer. The issue of derailing took up a great deal of conversational space during Racefail '09. The community Fight Derailing was formed in response, and the website Derailing for Dummies was also created in response to those events.[1]

Not all fans agree about what is or is not derailing and some people have more tolerance than others for broadly branching conversations.

References

  1. ^ A Note About Derailing for Dummies., accessed November 25, 2010