Original thread
Yes, the thread had gone off at a tangent. But I don’t see that this was a reason to close it. It could still have been reined in, and in any case wasn’t completely detached from the OP’s subject matter. There were still factual questions in the thread (if not the OP) which hadn’t been answered, and which might have been had the thread run its course.
‘Take it to Great Debates if you wish. Closed.’ - why not just move it to GD yourself? The person with the power to do so suggests that we do their job instead. Just because one part of the conversation has gone to GD levels, doesn’t mean the mods should wash their hands of their whole lot, which is how I read samclem’s post. Move it to GD and we can carry on, or give a decent reason for closing an active thread.
Not to speak for samclem, but when the only active discussion in a thread is on a completely different topic than its title and OP, moving it is not an attractive option. It’s far better to start a new thread with a title and OP which accurately describe the discussion at hand than to expect posters in the new forum to wade through a bunch of irrelevant posts to find out what the thread is now about.
Agreed. It’s much clearer if you simply start a new thread in the appropriate forum, and link to the original. The first part of that thread had little to do with the debate, and was ultimately hijacked.
Sumbich. Giraffes can talk. What won’t they think of next.
As a concession, I’ll go search for the incredible multiple previous threads on this one and post them. Not that it’s the fault of the OP. He can’t search.
I was somewhat disappointed, in that I would have been willing to search for many of the relevant threads (since I contributed to many a search on my username brings up quite a few) and post the links in a vain but compulsive attempt to answer the OP… but the thread went from open to closed in the time it took me to read it. So, alas, SamClem, you will have to do the work yourself instead of letting a poster help you out.
Although I also noted that the OP never seemed to show up after the OP. Don’t know if he would have eventually or not.