Is a "closed" sticker a possible future feature?

[M. J. Young]

I've often poured over posts on a thread for what feels a long time, and then come to the end to find that Ron or Clinton has closed it.

Sometimes I'll have already started composing a response based on a post I read early in the thread; sometimes I'll even have posted it before I got to the end and read the close notice. Sometimes I've been frustrated by the fact that I had spent a long time considering what I needed to say in a response, only to find that it had been shut down with those issues unanswered.

Having just hit a closed thread in which the closing didn't bother me, it occurred to me that a fair amount of confusion and frustration might be avoided if perhaps there were some way by which Ron or Clinton (or for certain fora the forum moderator) could click a button which set a flag on the forums listing page that notified us that the thread was officially closed before we started reading it.

Certainly there will still be times when a thread will close while someone is reading it, and they will cross-post with the close notice; but at least this idea might help readers know when a thread shouldn't be expanded.

But then, I know it's packaged software, and I don't know what the options are on it.

--M. J. Young

[greyorm]

MJ, the answer is obvious. Have something to say about a topic in a closed thread that hasn't been covered yet...start a new thread. Most threads are closed because the original poster's question was answered, but that doesn't mean future discussions on the same topic are now "off-limits."

[Jack Aidley]

The software does have that feature - it's called a 'locked thread' - Ron and Clinton choose not to use it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Those are all good points, from everyone so far.

Considering the volume of Forge users, it's a hard set of decisions. On the one hand, people who practice (in my opinion) a healthy-limited sort of site use are being disadvantaged by closed threads they didn't manage to get to in time. On the other, great danger lies in permitting a thread which really needs closing to remain open; socially and intellectually, it leaves scars.

M.J., you and I have been interacting on fairly small forums for ... wow, about five years now. So we're accustomed to a slower pace and giving one another room to think and consider answers. I'd like to encourage a deliberate slowdown at the Forge in general, in that discussion here is not a race, but it's very hard - people in traffic think it's a race, and there's a lot more negative consequences for that attitude out there than in here.

(Incidentally, Jack, M.J. knows all about the locking/closing thing. He's one of the people whose interactions helped make the community what it is, such that locking is so rarely necessary. No big deal, and your point is valid for other, newer readers.)

Another issue is that I go through personal cycles, ranging from hardly-ever-close to close-monster. There doesn't seem to be much help for that beyond my trying to minimize the height of my oscillation.

Raven, I do think your point is the solution, although maybe not so obvious as you stated. The single most frequent reason I close threads is because at least one person on it, and usually more, are so busy digging in their heels and defending turf that they cannot engage in discourse. If that's why the thread is closed, then the most important things to do are:

1. Recognize that your perfectly-honed rejoinder wouldn't have made any difference anyway; the person or persons weren't considering any replies so far, so what good would yours be?

2. Come up with a different take on the original question which you think would be more constructive from the outset. You can then choose what to do with it:

a) Start a new thread, and consider perhaps waiting for a while, thus referencing back to that thread after the initial closing-resentment has settled down.

b) Contact one or more people who participated in the thread by private email and hash it out there.

c) Or perhaps set it aside in a file on your drive as possible meat for future discussions, as opportunity arises.

I hope this helps, and thanks for everyone's input.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Weeks]

It doesn't seem like this addresses MJ's suggestion of having some kind of a visual tag on the forum-thread-list pages that indicate which threads have been Ron-closed.  (Unless there's some subtle part of the traffic/race analogy that I'm not getting.)

Is such a flag either a bad idea or technologically problematic?

Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Oh yeah - that's a Clinton question, though. My only concern with it (which would defer to his decision) is that it might trade the slight and familiar confusion over closed/open(which is almost always solved by a brief note) for an unknown degree of confusion over closed/locked.

Best,
Ron

[Jack Aidley]

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I really don't understand - if you're going to start adding symbolic and code-features for closing why not just lock the thread? How is it any different?

This is what I intended to say with my original post; won't the same reasons that have led you and Clinton not to lock apply equally to any other code-based closing technique?

[xiombarg]

Hmmm, perhaps it's time to reiterate why closed threads aren't locked...

[Shreyas Sampat]

Were Ron to choose to adopt a thing like this, I think it would be easiest to simply add (Closed) or something to that effect to the thread title; I'm pretty sure that phpbb allows that kind of thing already. This is essentially a way to put the "This Thread Is Closed" flag at the top of a thread rather than the bottom, which I think would be an improvement.

But Kirt brings up a good point.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Kirt (xiombarg), you were involved in the last discussion about this, so you probably remember Locking things.

Also, perhaps some new folks don't know this, but I am not the sole moderator at the Forge. I share that task with Clinton R. Nixon. We both have input into all aspects of managing the Forge, although I am El Supremo when it comes to content and etiquette, and he is El Supremo when it comes to design, format, and interactive software.

Best,
Ron

[xiombarg]

Kirt (xiombarg), you were involved in the last discussion about this, so you probably remember Locking things.

I remember being convinced by your logic, but for the life of me I couldn't remember why or what thread it was outlined on. Thanks for the link. ;-D

*rereads the thread*

Yeah, okay, the reasoning from that thread is still sound, I think. However, I think modifying the subject line to have a [closed] tag or even a [c] tag, to address MJ's problem as per the suggestion of Mr. Sampat, would be a worthwhile thing.

To return to my point from that old thread but with another angle, if Clinton were willing to code something that adds a [c] tag to a thread that doesn't already have it after a certain amount of time of inactivity, that would make it known the thread is closed without having to read the whole thing, but leave the thread "open" in the way y'all prefer.

But that's More Work For Clinton, and I understand if he doesn't want to do it. That said, doing it by hand for more recently closed threads, assuming it's as easy as moderator to modify the subject as Shreyas suggests, seems to me to be a good idea. I mean, no more harder than/much more effort than the "this thread is closed" post, eh?

On another "made more work for the moderators" note, we really need a sticky that links to important policy discussion threads like that one...

[greyorm]

Heya,

Ron, I agree with everything you said. Was thinking the same, but decided not to get long-winded about (ie: reasons for thread-closings influencing the final format and reasons for posting a reply to such), and went with the "best case" scenario, rather than the drooling, monstrous "must...be...right...must...post...opinion! Hulk ANGRY! Hulk SMASH!" scenario (and less forceful iterations of the same).

As to the idea of a "closed" tag...I'm leery of the psychology of it. That is, I have a feeling that a "closed" tag on a thread would be (overall) a negative, rather than a positive: "Oh, that thread is closed. I won't bother reading it now." Or, "Oh, a closed thread. Must not be worth reading." Both very reasonable reactions to seeing such a tag amid otherwise "open" threads.

And regardless, every thread becomes closed after just shy of two weeks of no activity on it (at least that's the time limit I've always considered for differentiating between "belongs here" or "needs a new thread"); do we need to tag every thread that passes the loose time limit, too? Admitedly, less of a concern to me, but it's there.

[quozl]

Sometimes I'll have already started composing a response based on a post I read early in the thread; sometimes I'll even have posted it before I got to the end and read the close notice.

I think this is the problem.  Why would you post a reply before reading the entire thread?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I think such an automatic-lock policy would cause more problems than it would solve.

The whole "Stop" signal connotation for anyone coming to the Forge would be almost impossible to avoid. I can't see any way to convince someone that our discussions are "open" if each one is irrefutably ... well, closed. The closed-to-add-posts concept and the closed-to-further-development concept are inextricably linked in many people's minds.

This seems to be the main issue with locking threads. It seems to be a weird piece of site ettique which works, but not always. Sometimes a new person resurrects a years-old thread without knowing policy and then others, including regulars, will reply to what looks like a new thread, when it isn't. The only indication of thread age are the posting dates, which I don't look at, usually partially because I'm going on faith that the thread is a fresh one and partially because whenever i do bother to check, I usually confuse the member joined date with the thread posted date and this is enough to reinforce my initial faith approach.

Example, I could swear I saw that this thread was originally started in 2002. Seriously.

Perhaps adding a date to the subject line would make it clearer when a thread is past it's prime which will be a good indicator for members for when a thread is closed but won't be the "closed" tag as per the concerns in the quote above. A date or similar item.

That said, I don't think the policy needs to be re-evaluated but I do think it will need to be soon. As per Ralph's post about the spike in membership/participation, it appears the Forge is growing and if this continues a different tactic will be needed or else Ron and Clinton will spend most of the time they spend on the site moderating instead of participating.

Besides, people do look at closed threads. I know that when I scan the RPGnet forums if I spot a closed thread with a subject I have a passing interest in, I click on it just to see what went down. "Seeing what went down" may not apply here so much, but closed <> no one will read it.

And closed does not always equal the topic is closed. Particularly for the newbie who posts on a topic when the thread has long since been buried for a year.

Example: the topic of Solo gaming seems to pop up every now and again.

Speaking of which, is there a way to autolock after a year. I don't believe we have any threads still active after a year, do we? Perhaps even adding a note to the top of the thread to start a new thread on the topic for those digging into the forums.

Two whole cents.

[Emily Care]

My personal solution is whenever I see a old thread I'm interested in with Ron as the last poster, I click on the icon that lets me view the last post first.  This lets me check to see if it's been closed before I read the whole thing. Then maybe I work backwards a bit to see if it's worth reading.  If it is, then I go back to the start.

Investing a little time and effort to save a lot more.

--Emily