# Protocol for locking posts?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [March 2, 2005, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579 "2005-03-02T10:18:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Iceland\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iceland_Blue)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/1 "2005-03-02T10:18:53Z")
May I suggest that there be a standard way of locking posts,so that if this needs to be done,the mod simply states that ‘this thread is being locked for reason X’ with nothing else added?It’s annoying to find that a mod has made a statement that is inaccurate or provocative happy in the knowledge that no-one can comment or complain about it as they’ve then locked it…
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/2 "2005-03-02T13:03:00Z")
You may feel quite free to take your annoyance to the Pit.
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### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/3 "2005-03-02T13:27:57Z")
Annoying or not, it’s become a kinda tradition around here and has as its ultimate genesis (at least as practiced here), our benefactor and sage, Cecil Adams. Of course, most of the moderator comments are quite anemic and sallow when compared with such gems as Cecil tosses out offhandedly, such as: “If ignorance were cornflakes, John, you’d be General Mills.” As with all such traditions, some folks enjoy 'em, some don’t. Quite frankly, I rather enjoy the disparaging comments of the mods - both reading them now, and crafting them when I modded MPSIMS.
Anyway, it’s generally found throughout life that bucking tradition, especially essentially harmless ones, is most often a fruitless and frustrating activity. Much easier and less antagonizing to one’s self to just ignore it and move on.
Not much he’p, I know, but there it is.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/4 "2005-03-02T13:44:10Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#):
>
> Annoying or not, it’s become a kinda tradition around here and has as its ultimate genesis (at least as practiced here), our benefactor and sage, Cecil Adams. Of course, most of the moderator comments are quite anemic and sallow when compared with such gems as Cecil tosses out offhandedly, such as: “If ignorance were cornflakes, John, you’d be General Mills.” As with all such traditions, some folks enjoy 'em, some don’t. Quite frankly, I rather enjoy the disparaging comments of the mods - both reading them now, and crafting them when I modded MPSIMS.
>
> Anyway, it’s generally found throughout life that bucking tradition, especially essentially harmless ones, is most often a fruitless and frustrating activity. Much easier and less antagonizing to one’s self to just ignore it and move on.
>
> Not much he’p, I know, but there it is.
Supplemental to **Unc** ’s post, from someone who’s been around quite a while and never been a Mod., is that the reason for locking the thread **is** customarily given, but expressed in **Cecil** -style sardonic wit. It’s rare to have a thread locked without a reason given – except briefly, when a flamefest is locked while the Mod. crafts the post explaining his/her reason for locking.
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/5 "2005-03-02T15:14:31Z")
> [@Iceland\_Blue](#):
>
> May I suggest that there be a standard way of locking posts,so that if this needs to be done,the mod simply states that ‘this thread is being locked for reason X’ with nothing else added?
Yes, you may definitely suggest that, and this forum is the right place for that suggestion.
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### Author:  [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/6 "2005-03-02T15:57:02Z")
Suggestions may be made, but not necessarily implemented.
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### Author:  [@nocturnal\_tick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nocturnal_tick)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/7 "2005-03-02T16:48:06Z")
So am I the only one that liked this line?
> [@Cajun Man](#):
>
> This thread has gone from the ridiculous to the sublime.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2005, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/protocol-for-locking-posts/292579/8 "2005-03-02T21:01:21Z")
I thought he meant “surreal.”