Something I've been pondering after reading the recent posts about derailing on metafandom(*): I realise that linking to derailing posts lets people see the full scope/trend of the discussion discussion, but by linking them do you not also vastly increase their audience and thus the effect of their derail? Labelling them as derailing may help stop people uncritically considering them a continuation of the same discussion, but several people have argued that labelling ones own derailing post as a derail doesn't counteract it's derailingness and afaict the same principle would apply here.

I'm not sure there's any way to completely balance these issues, but thought it was worth bringing up.

With regards to the specific topic of this post (lol, I am derailing aren't I? Crap) I am ambivalent and will probably be happy enough with whatever you decide.

(*)In which linkspam's policy's come up a fair bit! Though many of the references are, imo, derailing. It all get a bit circular...