Ratholing

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Ratholing is a word to describe a conversation or process that has deviated from its original productive purpose into a generally unproductive but long and winding detour that eventually comes to a dead end. If you are part of such a discussion or process you can describe this as being ratholed or being in a rathole (or rat hole).

The origin of ratholing might come from rathole tunnels. The term use does visually match the description of real rat holes dug by rats.

The term is often used when describing highly technical discussions^{[citation needed]}. The original discussion purpose may be to agree on a course of action. However if one or more people rathole into a specific point of the discussion then the discussion stalls with no actionable outcome.

Ratholing may also describe a specific process where a proxy server identifies a client that is generating too much traffic and is programmatically put in a rathole^{[citation needed]}. This can also be called blacklisting.

Ratholing is also a Poker term which refers to illegally taking money off the table^{[citation needed]}. For example, If you are at a casino table and you win $100 dollars in a hand, and you wish to take out that $100 from the table, but keep the rest of your at the table, that would be called ratholing, and it is not allowed.

Ratholing is also prison slang for smuggling or hiding items in the rectum.^{[citation needed]}

This term is frequently used on the Macbreak Weekly podcast, resulting in the eventual creation of the "Rathole!" jingle^[1] and subsequent full-length song.^[2]

[edit] Citations

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