lwf58 wrote:Discussing the merits of a story in a fic search thread is okay. Where we went off-topic is in discussing the character of Hotaru, which has nothing to do with how good any of the stories listed in the thread are.
To answer your half-asked question, in the majority of the site, off-topic drifting is not permitted. That's not to say that you cannot dig into every possible angle of the topic, but generally, you can tell what the discussion is about by looking at the message that opens the topic, or the topic title. That's what we use when judging whether a conversation has gone too off the original discussion.
I asked about Hotaru because I am largely unfamiliar with the SM canon material, and I found that I don't really need to be familiar with it to enjoy fanfiction based on it. However, knowing how something was or wasn't done in canon helps to put the fic in the proper perspective and to judge it on its own merits. For example, I can tolerate angst better if it has some justification in canon.
The way you describe it, free-spirited discussion does get inhibited at times. What are the procedures if a topic is drifting away from the thread's original purpose, but I want to continue discussing it? Do I create a new thread and link to it? I really don't want to run afoul of the rules, but I also don't want to be totally crippled in my ability to communicate with other people on this forum, because really, where's the point if you can't even have a relaxed discussion? (The reason I wanted to take this somewhere else is so I wouldn't have to hash out details like these in this thread.)
Quizer