Topic: Locked Forums

I've started to frequent the NL forums on a more regular basis, and I've noticed that some forums are locked (meaning no more comments are being accepted). What causes a forum to be locked? Does the original author close it off, do the admins do it due to an inappropriate topic, if there is more than one forum about a particular subject do the admins lock the newer ones and refer the author to the already established forum to combat congestion, or does it happen for some other reason?

This thread is gonna be locked too, but not before dragon links you too an old thread explaining the rampant locking of topics

When the topic is locked, the reason for the locking will be expressed by mods who locked it.

If the locking needs to explained further, then the mod will send an e-mail to the OP of that thread.

Yes, yes, and yes, really. If a topic is inappropriate, totally pointless (a false rumor, for example, or an April Fool's joke in December), or if the discussion has descended into bickering or tail-chasing, we'll usually go ahead and lock it. That said, most locked topics happen because the thread is a duplicate of an existing thread. We don't have a merge function here (yet), so in order to keep discussions together instead of splintered across sixteen different threads, we lock duplicates and redirect users to where the topic can be discussed. That said, we make sure the final comment on a given topic explains what's happened when it comes to the locking of a topic — whether it's from us or from another user who happened to state the situation quite succinctly.

As always, if you ever have any questions about why a particular topic of yours was locked, we invite you to use the Contact Form to get in touch. Thank you! :3