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[orange]

Why are threads that contained discussion, while having gone off-topic, being locked with statements like "Discussion has run its course"?

[Vikarion]

You forgot others being reopened with aspersions cast on some of the posters.

[Silver Night]

The discussions in question had gone off topic (as you note) and were essentially just a couple of the same people posting the same couple of points back and forth across 2 or 3 different threads. The mods made the decision to lock the threads and start a new thread (rather than try to prune the existing threads and direct them individually all back on-topic).

The moderators discussed whether the thread derailment, which has been the subject of numerous post reports, should be considered a Rule 11 breach and posts should be catacombed. In this case, we considered the appropriate course to be thread locking. Several threads which in our opinion had gone downhill were not redirected to new topics, although of course any board member is free to start a new topic. Others were redirected to a consolidated topic.

Board members wishing to discuss matters not on-topic to the subject are, as always, free to start threads for those discussions - although as always personal attacks are against the rules.

Feel free to review the Rules, Mission Statement, and FAQ - particularly the parts regarding staying on topic, the difference between debate and argument, avoiding flame bait, and the atmosphere of pleasant and civil discussion we try to foster here.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I approve this step of moderation.

[Sakura Nihil]

Meh.

[Vikarion]

So, should we be expecting any posts or threads discussing how CCP has handled the live events and/or story to be modded? Because that seems to be your intention.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

It seems like they are banning posts which are toxically phrased, to be honest.

[Silver Night]

So, should we be expecting any posts or threads discussing how CCP has handled the live events and/or story to be modded? Because that seems to be your intention.

Derailing threads with unrelenting negativity - and indeed past a certain point, probably just unrelenting negativity by itself - will be moderated (in the latter case, because it seems to rarely lead to useful or constructive discussions, and begins to qualify as flame bait.)

[Ché Biko]

I just want to say that I would have liked to be able to post my own on-topic opinion on some of those threads, and I didn't get the chance to do so. I'm not sure if a warning was issued in order to try and get the thread on topic, like they do on the EVE-O forums, but that's what I think should have been done before locking the threads.

[Silver Night]

If your opinion isn't on-topic for one of the repost threads, please feel free to create a new thread.

[Lyn Farel]

If your opinion isn't on-topic for one of the repost threads, please feel free to create a new thread.

I agree with the mod decision, but Che brings a valid point to me : creating a new thread is quite meh and awkward most of the time, and also why should he have to pay for the mistakes of others in the first place ?

[Ché Biko]

Comments like "the discussion has run it's course" (after not a day has passed since they started) do not really encourage creating new threads, despite that I saw the "feel free to create new threads" comments. I think it's mostly the "course" comment that bothered me a bit. Like no one would be able to bring something new to the table.

In this case I won't bother, my comments would have been nice as a contribution to the existing thread, but I don't think they're that grand that they warrant the creation of their own thread (or the re-opening of the old ones, for that matter). Also, it just feels counter-intuitive to me to re-create a thread locked by a moderator.
I guess I'm mirroring Lyn's comment here.

[Silver Night]

Essentially the threads were locked mostly because they were off-topic. We locked rather than cleaned because it seemed like the threads had overall gone entirely off-topic, rather than specific comments that needed cleaning out being off topic. That is also why some of the threads were then reposted as new threads by the mods. 'Discussion ran it's course' in this case mostly refers to the discussion of the actual topic had apparently gotten as much attention as it was going to get in the thread, given the derailing.

We could have probably been more specific in the threads in question about exact reasons for the lock, and that's something we will make sure and be more careful of in the future.

[Ember Vykos]

Meh.

This pretty much. Just because a discussion gets off topic or people get heated then kinda stop posting doesn't mean a thread needs to be locked. I've seen a few today I'd like to post in that are locked because they've "run their course" but I just found em. Are you doing this cause you don't want things to get necro'd or what?

[Silver Night]

We've only done this on relatively few threads, and the ones recently were all (broadly) discussing the same topic. IIRC 2 were locked and a consolidated discussion thread was posted to take over for them, and a third was just locked because the discussion was determined to not be salvageable.

It isn't something we do all the time, by any means.