Thread hijacks have been a topic of discussion, often heated, ever since online discussion forums began.
Originally it was considered the height of rudeness to divert a thread the least iota from its original topic. The reasons are easy enough to see. Early Usenet groups and so on were difficult to navigate. Navigation through a thread, and across a forum, took time and effort. Online connect time was expensive and, depending on one's access method, often limited by hard stop times, so every minute online needed to count toward a more or less single-minded goal.
Today, most if not all of those issues have gone away. Cost and availability of online connect time are no longer limiting factors. Forum software such as here is vastly more navigable than of old. The old pattern of interest groups made up of large numbers of often largely anonymous-to-one-another participants has in many cases given way to communities such as here, where, while still anonymous, the continuity of participation makes many of us known to one another in the sense of our consistent, authentic screen personas, what each of us is interested in, what you can expect when you see a given individual posting, etc.
Given all that, some of us -- I for one -- very much enjoy it when a thread meanders off its original topic, going into side discussions much as we would if sitting around together over after-dinner drinks. On the other hand, some strongly dislike it when a thread deviates at all from the original topic.
This poll is just a Curiosity Shop entry to see how many hold to the one view, and how many to the other. Or don't care either way.