Purposely derailing a thread

[SisterMichaelsHabit]

Can MNHQ consider whether it could be made against talk guidelines for posters to vexatiously and persistently purposely derail a thread at all, please?

I've just read one where a poster took issue with one word the OP used (IMO, and in the opinion of dozens of other posters, she was correct to use it in context) and a handful of other posters decided to turn it into a pedantic pile-on against the OP, totally derailing the thread for pages, and making it impossible for people to actually have a conversation about the topic.

I know that specifically attacking someone's spelling and punctuation is against talk guidelines, but there are some posters who don't openly do that, they just pick at a specific word used by the OP and seem to intentionally take the post completely the wrong way, in a confrontational way that totally wrecks the thread and at worst, upsets the OP and scares them away (it didn't scare this OP off but I've seen it before and then the troll hunting resumes with comments like "OP isn't coming back" with an emoji that makes it clear they think she's a troll).

In the one I saw today, the poster who derailed the thread started out with very subtle troll hunting then called the OP names in a subsequent post (all reported) and then kept going, totally derailing the thread over word choice. Another poster jumped in part-way through and joined in this silly derailing and soon everyone was arguing over one word in the thread title rather than the actual thread content that OP had spent time writing and waiting for advice that she needed.

I just really think it should come under the same umbrella as people who have a go at the OP for spelling or punctuation because I've noticed loads of these lately but it's been going on for years and it makes it pointless to try and participate in a thread where 2-3 posters are prolifically and repeatedly egging each other on that in their view the OP didn't word their post correctly and just dominating the thread so people can't actually give the OP advice or discuss anything properly.

People wouldn't do this in IRL conversation, I don't think it should be acceptable on MN.

I think it sort of is depending on the circumstances.

I know posts were deleted for people trying to fill threads in the Sex board and the FWR board with recipes to block others having a discussion.

I suppose a discussion about a word the OP uses isn't such a directly obvious derailment.

Hi OP

Thanks so much for raising this.

We deal with derailing on a case-by-case basis because it isn't clear cut.
We would look at the context of the thread, the users contributions to the thread and their contributions site-wide, and that would all go into consideration when investigating. We will also keep an eye to see if any patterns develop.

The best thing you can do is report your concerns to us - whilst it may not look like we're taking action against a single post, we can assure you we'd be looking at the bigger picture and it's always good to make us aware of these things.