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Closed Threads

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Roamin_Wade

Moderator
What is the point of closing threads? For the life of me I can't see the fruit of this dynamic. Can someone explain this practice to me? Also, who closes them?
 
Closed by the forum moderators. The goal is twofold. First, is to keep the forum on topic. If a thread is off topic or has definitely drifted off topic, they will close it. Second is to keep from promoting an endless conversation that provides no real information. Some threads would go on forever not accomplishing anything of real value to the forum members.
 
Shouldn’t that be up to the one who created the thread? It just seems like a person could feel like the thread is too long and it needs to be stopped but the next person may feel like they could add something real fruitful to the thread but someone, for some reason, took it upon themselves to be the arbitrary arbiter. I really don’t think that’s a very good dynamic. If the users feel like someone is clipping threads too early is there any recourse? How many moderators does TFL have?
 
There are several reasons to close a thread. We like to keep TFL pretty focused on firearms.

1. Sometimes, a thread starts on a topic that we just don't do here. TEOTWAWKI comes to mind.

2. Thread drift. Every thread will drift some, but at some point, thread drift can take it far outside the realm of "firearms-related" topics.

3. Squabbling. Sometimes, a thread is just so full of "noise" and bickering that it looks like everyone has lost sight of the original question, and it's best to just close it and let everyone involved go somewhere else.

But, no, that's really not best left up to the thread starters. The power to close a thread also carries the power to re-open it. I don't even want to think about trying to moderate a forum where everybody could open and close their threads at will.

Those of us who are mods make those decisions. There's usually (but not always) an explanation given for a thread being closed.

If the users feel like someone is clipping threads too early is there any recourse? How many moderators does TFL have?
Click to expand...
If you feel like a thread was wrongly closed, the best first move (usually) is to PM the moderator who closed it. If you don't know who that is, you can PM any of the other mods, and we can tell you who did. If you're not satisfied with the results you get, you can PM Mal H or Art Eatman. They sort of oversee moderation.
 
There was a company owned bulletin board that I frequented for many years, the man who owned the company built and maintained the board for the entertainment and information of his customers. It wasn't completely devoted to his business, only about half of the site was. This man took his business very seriously, it was his life.

When a handful of troublemakers started aggressively trolling the board the owner of that board washed his hands of it. He owned it and his salaried staff managed it. When people started to troll him personally, he felt no further need to allow a service that he performed for a minor number of his customers to be a drag on his business. He shut it down overnight, and the venal reactions from the trolls was epic and widespread all over the internet.

A bulletin board really needs to be moderated. Larger boards require even tighter moderation. Some people see it as censorship and oppression, but moderation is how a board stays on target, and stays relevant. When disorder becomes widespread they degenerate into facebook like cancers.

The volunteers who run this board do so as a favor. If operations become too anarchic and disorganized, just like Lew Rothman, these people who own and run the board will clean house or shut it down entirely.

A board is an organized and structured place to discuss specific items without having to filter through megabytes of junk while surfing. There is nothing else like the BBS system. Facebook is a pathetic shadow of what a BB aspires to, but that is what is happening as people lose interest, boards lose members and fewer join, and the boards close down leaving twitter, FB, and all of those other pretty much useless profit based 'services.'

My grandfather always said to me "You have your bible, your almanac, your dictionary and encyclopedia, and you'd better cherish them. They are the only things that you can count on when you need to think. Dread the day that you don't have them."
 
It's also more than fair to state that the *vast* majority of threads on TFL are never closed. They just die from a lack of participation. Some of them are (necessarily or otherwise) resuscitated years (a decade + even) later by a new post.

If you look at the most active forums (Semi-auto Handguns and Art of the Rifle- General), you will see only 2 of the 100 most recently active threads in both forums have been closed. On the very first page of General Rifles you will find a thread that has been continuously active for over 13 years.

In short, it's not an arbitrary and capricious process and is taken quite seriously by the staff here. A very small number of threads are ever closed and then for very specific (and good) reasons.
 
Ah! Okay, if a magazine entity owns this site then they can moderate it how they see fit. That’s information I didn’t have. Thanks for all your help folks...
 
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