I start a topic – say, “Responding or Not-Responding to Trolls” and within a short time, it’s filled with discussion of troll-filled topics, why MRAs are assholes, why AVFM is ridiculous, and how the World Series is a joke since it’s really only a sport played in America with a few token Canuckistanis.
###It would be nice if there was a way to delete to hide such posts, to keep the thread on-topic.
Not involving an moderator – and something that could only be done by the creator of the topic.
I don’t know about this. So the topic creator would have life or death control over each post in the topic?
That seems extreme. Perhaps the topic could be better defined at the outset so people are clear what is wanted and unwanted in the topic?
Instead of nuking the posts, how about having them hid, so a moderator could bring them back, if so desired? Say, per bad-behavior on the part of the hider.
Yes, but people, being people, never obey the TOS anyway.
See, for example: "Don't feed the trolls" they keep saying. and it keeps not working
And, yes, I also contribute the off-topic discussion. Mea Culpa.
Yeah, just because we create a specific thread doesn’t mean it’s our blog. We’re still guests here, and nuking other people’s contributions without the help/guidance/restraint of the duly appointed mods seems outside the scope of most of our Trust Levels.
But it does mean that any user-created topic can be (and are) derailed quite easily; the mods have better things to do. And so do I – requesting deletion (or removal to another, new thread) would take a loooong time. Far easier to de-rail than to keep on-track.
What about just giving users the ability to delete topics they create if they realize after-the-fact that they weren’t exercising good judgement when posting them? We already have that ability for individual comments.
The nuclear option:
If you identify a thread you created as having gone irretrievably off-the-rails, I imagine that any of the mods could/would lock it upon your request.
I think every thread I ever started in the “Wrath” category has eventually been locked by an admin.
Edit: Many, but not all of my “Wrath” threads have been locked.
Do they? Isn’t that what they’re here for?
I imagine I haven’t been paying close enough attention to the more contentious threads lately. I saw how the GG discussions attracted plenty of drive-by trollies and such. But when it comes to creating our own threads to discuss such contentious topics, well, we knew the job was dangerous when we took it. Certain discussions will attract hornets, and if liberal use of flags doesn’t clean house quickly enough, one alternative would be to not have those discussions at all. That’s obviously not a good solution, but the one you propose might have worse unforeseen consequences. People who start threads, if they are given the power to unilaterally censor posts, will almost inevitably abuse such power. Some schmuck who doesn’t like a particular turn of opinion might nuke a post for being what he, the schmuck, calls “off-topic” but what other readers might consider “contrary to OP’s opinion.”
The Dragon often reminds us to Stay On Topic when it matters, and that beast also has a great sense of when it doesn’t matter, and lets certain discussions range all over the place, which might irritate the OP but which might entertain the hell out of every other participant. There’s an element of taking one’s ball and going home that arises if an OP is given veto power over a discussion on a BBS that does not actually belong to the OP. If one of the BoingBoing editors wants to run their threads that way, that’s their business, since they pay the hosting bills. But the rest of us, I submit, are nothing more than guests of equal standing, stooges all. If somebody’s a dick in a thread I start, or hijacks it far OT, then I’ll get to flaggin’. That’s what the flags are for.
Topic drift is an inevitable fact of forum life. And I say that as a serial offender. 
Suggestion - indicate the thread is more focused than normal either in the title or the OP and politely remind folks to keep it on-topic because there’s important stuff you need to discuss.
Then flag the crap out of off-topic posts. It’s not like they weren’t warned.
Flag things for deletion and we will moderate them. All topics are equal in our eyes.
How about that Kanye, eh? What a bozo.
I’m not against, say, trust level users of a certain level be given limited ability to pull derailing comments out of a discussion thread they started.
Many topics brought up are interesting,but derail.
I recall that, if a comment is split out by a high trust level user, that new comment thread is already ‘created’ by the comment maker of the redirected comment. So in my proposed regime, the user whose comment was moved would have that same power (if their TL was sufficient) in that side discussion that -they- want to have. Seems fair to me.
But no. Regular users should not be able to remove any content or auto-block any opinion. There is perfectly good wetware for that.
I would argue that topics I create are lower quality, and ‘time to realization’ may be hours. Deleting may be a bit harsh, but given this is a programmable conversation platform a more robust user redaction method would be nice.
Or I just learn to not post after enjoying a dram 
Would it be possible to empower the creator of a topic to move a post from that topic to another topic created by the same topic creator?
Abuse-of-power risk seems low for this specific case.
Why would you flag all of them? That’s just annoying, man! Flag one and say “move this tangent”.
Sorry, won’t do it again.
We don’t know what is annoying on your end 'til you tell us.
Wouldn’t be a problem in a properly threaded forum. Jus’ sayin’
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