If your thread starts to wander, it is partially your responsibility to bring it back into focus. Its not a well oiled machine where you put a quarter in one end and get a shiney gumball out of the other. Nobody is gonna stop you from posting 2-3 more times saying "what about option X with regard to my origional topic of Y". Sure, it might be a little annoying to have to go in and nudge your thread to keep it on the agenda you're trying to follow, but hey, thats life! If nothing else, its good practice for the cat-herding you'll probably experience when you leave school and get to real life and have to *gasp* attend/run meetings at work. Meetings are a brilliant tool, but also the potential to be a complete waste of time. Threads and meetings aren't that dissimilar, actually. They are generally domineered by the loudest person involved in them, and often the second loudest person there will disagree with them, and the two of them will set off on some tangent while everyone else sits around and plays with their iPhones. Sometimes you have to ask those two to take their arguement to another thread/meeting so you can get back onto your agenda of getting help. It takes a bit of work, but most things that are worthwhile do.

THE INTERNET IS TEACHING YOU REAL LIFE SKILLS! OMG!