Closing topics without explanation...

[JezMM]

This is just a little thing that bothers me, but I've seen it happen semi-often.

Today, the "What game are you playing?" topic got closed without any explanation whatsoever. It had been threatened in the past, but that just lead me to more confusion, since when it was, people were told off for discussing one game for too long when the topic was about multiple games. Now it's closed and nothing seemed to be amiss in the final posts involved.

But this isn't about that topic in particular, I'm sure I've seen several topics be closed without any closing statement from the staff member in question. The thread just... stops.

Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but it just seems a bit confusing and discourteous. How are we meant to know what's allowed and what isn't without examples? Forgive the extreme analogy, but it'd be like getting arrested without the police officer saying "You are under arrest for <crime>" in the process.

When nothing seems wrong with a topic, it just comes across as like, being closed under the "Stop having fun guys" rule, if you get me.

Edited August 27, 2009 by JezMM

[Chris]

Our moderators have been instructed several times in the past to always leave a reply informing the members as to why a topic has been locked - the topic you've mentioned looks to be mistakenly locked as it was locked from the forum's topic listing, as opposed to within the topic itself.

I've opened the topic.

[Daisoku]

This happened to the Sonic Design preferation thread, then an admin opened it again.

[Flyboy Fox]

Moderators are able to lock topics by simply clicking the icon next to the topic name in the forum listings, therefore it does occasionally happen that we accidentally lock a topic without realising with an errant mouse-click ^^; I know I've done so in the past. As Chris said, it's quite likely that's what happened.

If it happens again, the quickest way to get attention about it is to report the topic. Topics shouldn't ever be closed without a post explaining why (unless it's an obvious spam/troll topic etc), so please do tell us if you see one.

[Badnik Mechanic]

When I was a staffer, I did this a few times, but once I caught myself doing it and discovered the problem.

If you use the scroll wheel's button function to navigate down a forum page... theres only a few places that you can place the mouse curser.

Some people will put it between the replies indication, and the end of a topic title. However, some (this can increase if theres long topic titles), will place it just to the left of the screen/page, either on or just left of the little folder icons,. The reason being, is that if you middle click on a topic title, it opens the topic in a new window/tab...

So you naturally move the mouse to the left of the screen where theres little things to click.

However occasionally, you can accidently hit the auto lock button and since you get no audio or message warning about locking the topic. Sometimes you can miss it. It's just a colour change in the folder icon if my memory is working.

Edited August 27, 2009 by Casanova

[JezMM]

Aha, I see, that makes sense. I'm glad that it's more often than not a technical error, and that you can report locked topics (I kind of had the mindset that once a topic is locked, that's it, no interaction at all unless you're a staff member).

[LATER BUDDY]

I'm too lame and have yet to close a topic, XP. However, I didn't no that you can make an easy mistake and accidentally close a topic, =O. I don't recall touching anything I don't usually touch, so I don't think I've done anything as far as I'm aware of, XD. If so, my apologies, O_o".

This is a great heads up though, makes me a more alert person now, =D.

-Blur

[Pelly <3's U]

Clicking on those icons inside the boxes will lock the topic and make it turn into that little red X like besides the Welcome to Chit-Chat topic (clicking on a locked topic like that will open it).

So ya accidental topic locks happen, to think that it's mods trying to kill the fun is reading waaaaay too much into it XD. As has already been mentioned just report a topic if you think it's been accidentally locked

[Indigo Rush]

*waits for this topic to get locked without a reply*