A closed forum
This phrase is beside a little icon of a padlock on the bottom of the “first page” of the SDMB. Have any forums (OK, fora, for you purists) ever been closed?
Both forums and fora are acceptable pluralizations in current English.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=8&daysprune=1000
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=9&daysprune=1000
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=10&daysprune=1000
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=11&daysprune=1000
Of course, those are somewhat of a special case, since they were never actually closed. They were just born that way. Well, sort of. They started off as “archive” fora, which isn’t quite closed, but is even less quite open. “Closed” was vB’s best guess on what to call them when it made the conversion.
Neither open nor closed. Hmmm. Do those fora contain their boundary points? That should help to settle the issue.
We locked them off to keep people from playing in them. I guess it’s an irresistible impulse or something, folks that managed to slide over into them just couldn’t help themselves. Like “Kilroy was here.”
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator