[Off topic]

The OP isn't about an issue at all, it's really just a post to promote romney lol.  You might as well delete the whole thread because there is nothing to debate or discuss because it's not factual at all.

That's not what the post is about though lol.  The post is about Romney.

The post is talking about recent changes in US and Canadian oil production.  Those are very much divorced from Romney, and an argument could very easily be made that those would have occurred if Romney was hit by an asteroid in 2008.

Now, there is a claim about Romney: "Romney can end the oil monopoly."  First of all, that's clearly an issue which can be debated independently.  More importantly, and more relevant to the issue at hand, just because Romney is mentioned in a post which is clearly focusing on one aspect of that person, it does not give people a right to drag in any random issue remotely related to Romney, because if we assume for the sake of argument that Romney is an integral part of the topic (a proposition I would disagree with in the first place), that wouldn't mean the topic was "Romney."  It would mean the topic was "Romney's position/influence/whatever regarding the issue at hand."  Otherwise, there wouldn't actually be in depth debate of any issue, and moreover, the energy issue which was brought up could easily be 100% evaded.

And THAT'S how you argue this without going off topic! 

How do you figure?  Obama isn't even mentioned in the post.

Despite the fact that the factual claims of oil production increasing now are all taking place entirely under a Democrat administration?

Now if he mentioned how things would change as far as OPEC goes and with Well Fracking and such with a change in administration or how they could potentially atleast, then it would be about the issue and not just about Romney

"Well fracking has been a powerful game changer. OPEC is running scared and has sponsored tons of anti-fracking movies, websites, 'studies', and funded groups committed against fracking.

But soon amazingly the United States shall make more oil than OPEC's big boy... Saudi Arabia. Canada is also growing faster in the development of oil fields.

Combine this with the huge amounts of Natural Gas at the moment and the switching of big companies to Nat Gas and OPEC is very alarmed."

All this cites issues happening right now... while Romney is just a guy with ambitions.

Now, first of all, the Romney comment is unrelated to the facts he actually presents (if he's noting the current evolution of fracking, it would show fracking is perfectly functional even under Obama).  I wouldn't enforce based upon this, though, because it's enforcing based on a pre-defined conclusion of the topic debate.

Second, and more important, to define the fundamental core "topic," a good method would exist in asking whether specific content within a post could be severed from the post as a whole and still fit the rules.  In short, when determining what is the "topic" and what is... useless junk which should not be enforced as the topic... a method of trying to read the post without the content in question will work.

Let's take this post, for example.  If the OPEC stuff was gone... the post would simply be an unwarranted "Vote for Romney," by your interpretation.  That post would be removed as spam.  However, if we were to remove any mention of Romney... there would still be a viable topic (the future of OPEC and North American energy production).  It would thus be activist on a moderator's part to enforce a thread as if that thread's topic was a topic which the moderators would close anyway.  At best, then, the comments about Romney are simply off-the-cuff random statements that can be ignored.

Regardless, though, you have yet to address my other point entirely: that even if this is a Romney thread, the topic is better defined as "Romney on X issue," which would still prevent the spamming of unrelated Romney issues.

> ~* Darth Vader

> Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

> > ~* Darth Vader