This is not a criticism of a moderator, who I understand at times has to choose an action from an imperfect list of options. But there must be ways of dealing with this situation.
The thread “Does anyone check to see whether weather predictions were correct?” was closed, for reasons unrelated to the merit of the thread. The reason given was that the OP had opened too many threads, despite a warning.
This particular question, I thought, was clear and to the point and salient to the objective of fighting ignorance. In seven hours, it elicited intelligent and knowledgeable replies from eight different posters, which all ranged from good to fascinating. I read every response, surrendered some of my own ignorance, and suddenly – “thread closed”. For reasons which had absolutely nothing to do with the suitability of the thread or the conduct of its participants.
I understand that the OP was in violation of both forum rules and ignoring a warning. But I hope a better way be can be found to punish a poster, than by punishing the rest of us by closing a lively and informative discussion.
Personally, I never look at the identity of the OP and have no idea about how many threats are started by anybody. In my view, it shouldn’t matter, as long as the topics are good ones, which this one unquestionably was. As far as I can tell, the OP, by posting this, did nothing harmful to the integrity or quality of the board. But rules are rules. Maybe it’s just an example of zero-tolerance leading to diminishing returns.
I don’t recall the OP of those threads getting any warnings. Colibri did leave mod notes in the closed threads that the GQ mods were going to start closing threads if there was an excessive number of them being started, but those were merely notes.
I believe that in one of those closings that I read, the moderator stated that the moderator instructions had been contained in a PM to the offending OP.
As for feeling protected or punished, I tend to agree with the OP of this thread that it would be nice if these thread closings could be somehow more selective as to content and apparent value of the thread, but I also recognize that this would be a probably intolerable burden on the moderators.
Why can’t you just reinitiate the conversation, if you so feel?
It would be as easy as cutting and pasting, after all. I doubt the mods would object. Then you’d have your way.
To just leave this thread open,( because you were enjoying it), even though it flies in the face of explicit directions from the mods, doesn’t seem the best course to me. Especially when there’s an easy solution for you, just restart the topic!
I can’t speak for the mods in this situation specifically, but in general, we don’t have an objection to someone else starting their own thread on the subject if they have the interest. You can even link back to the thread that was closed. True that it isn’t as neat as being able to continue the discussion in place, but as has been said, there isn’t really a perfect solution.
There is nothing at all wrong with any of Steve Estes’ individual threads, but he has started more than 20 of them in GQ in just a few days, which is a tad overwhelming. I see that he hasjust now posted another one, so we’ll see how that goes.
I notice that Colibri closed the thread. Interesting because Colibri also closed* a thread discussing a note he gave a poster in GQ. When I opened up another thread to ask why it was closed AND that there was no resolution to the question “What rule did the OP break.” he said he had nothing more to say on it and I guess the implication was we weren’t allowed to discuss it either because he closed THAT thread.
*With no explanation which I have never seen on this board.
Steven Estes has started 23 threads in General Questions since he started posting again about four days ago, after not having posted since 2009. At the moment, he has 14 of the 59 threads in GQ that have been active in the past two days (including moved and closed threads), or 24%.
From the Registration Agreement:
Bolding mine. In my judgement, a single poster taking up almost a quarter of the real estate on the front page of GQ is excessive. It will tend to dilute attention to questions from other posters, moving them farther down the page, and perhaps cause them to fall off the first page faster.
There’s also the issue that Steven Estes appears to be paying very little attention to the threads he starts. He has replied to only a couple of them. While there is no requirement to reply to your own threads in GQ, it is surprising that if someone has a real interest in a topic that they have no follow up questions or requests for more information. Steven Estes appears to be just churning out a random series of questions rather than having a serious interest in the answers. He also pays no attention to the forum descriptions, posting all his questions in GQ regardless of topic.
In view of all this, I sent him a PM a few days ago asking him to limit the number of threads he was starting in GQ. He has not replied, but instead started four new threads the following night and morning. I closed them with instructions to stop posting new threads until some had fallen off the first page. He made no response, but posted a new thread this morning, which I have closed. Since he is on line at the moment, I have to presume he has noticed the instructions if he is actually reading the threads he starts.
I am closing his threads as a way to get his attention. I apologize to posters who replied to them only to see them closed. If you are interested in the question, you are welcome to start a new thread in GQ with a link to the original.
Yes, as I noted, I sent him instructions by PM to limit the number of threads he has started. If he keeps ignoring instructions it could lead to a warning.
I did consider this, and originally just closed the more inane questions or ones with few replies. However, considering the apparent obliviousness of the poster I decided this wasn’t drastic enough to get his attention.
If he does show signs of paying attention, I can consider re-opening the closed threads.
That was pretty disappointing. **Samclem **had joined the conversation and I was waiting to see if he would’ve posted a response, but I guess the whole thing wasn’t to be.
FYI, since several of Steven Estes’ threads have now fallen off the front page, I have reopened the one mentioned in the OP. As more threads fall off the front page, I will gradually release the closed threads back into the wild.*
*Except for the one about “How many stars are there in the universe, how many drops of water are there in the oceans, etc.” I mean, sheesh.
If you are really interested in trying to answer it, I can reopen it. However, since the answer depends largely on definitions and on speculation, I would move it to IMHO.
I did the googling that he could have done. My very rough numbers are
Viruses 1 x 10[sup]31[/sup]
Bacteria 1 x 10[sup]30[/sup]
Drops 1 x 10[sup]25[/sup]
Stars 1 x 10[sup]24[/sup]
Grains 1 x 10[sup]18[/sup]
(I can give the URLs for each estimate in the thread.)
