Long ago I asked why we can’t close our own threads, and Manny replied that this rule was to prevent people from venting their anger or prejudice onto the board without allowing anyone to respond, presumably by opening a new thread then immediately closing it down.
On the other hand, I’ve often found that I post a question and fairly quickly get a sufficient number of answers to point me in the right direction for further info. At such a time I think it would be good to be able to close my thread.
This prevents endless rehashings of the same basic answer by different people who haven’t read all the way through the thread and hence don’t know that they don’t have anything to add. (I know I’ve been guilty of doing this myself on occasion).
So how about allowing members to close their own threads after a discrete interval, say 48 hours? Wouldn’t this
avoid a lot of redundant posts?
You can just make a request that a mod close the thread. If it’s really urgent (say, your thread got badly hijacked and a nasty fight has ensued), you can E-mail one of them, ANY one of them, and they’ll close it. They’ve always been good about that sort of thing.
SPOOFE is right: if a thread goes bad REALLY fast, a quick e-mail to any mod will suffice.
Also, consider this. Often, a thread can still evolve after the initial answer is given, and may be kept open for public interest. Just because the OP is content and had his answers delivered, doesn’t automatically mean the resulting discussion is over and done with. In other words: a poster doesn’t really own a thread once it’s posted. We do usually grant closure requests from the OP when personal matters are involved (personal Pit threads gone bad, for example).
The gray area not covered by the arguments above is where the judgement call is made solely by the moderator. That is, IF an intervention is needed. Usually, lack of interest makes a thread drop after a while anyway.