Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

See viewtopic.php?f=47&t=66537

I wonder, is it desirable that a user who thinks that his/her topic has been solved can lock it?

I saw that earlier, floris, and decided to leave it for further comment. I though at least it should have a comment added that it was locked by the OP.

Edit: In general, I don't approve of topics being locked by other than Forum administration

You can get a lot of inconsistency if users who accidentally discover that they can lock their own threads do so, while in general solved topics remain open. There's a point in locking a solved topic - it will force visitors with related problems to start a new topic instead of continuing a discussion on maybe different lines, getting further and further away from the original subject.

I quite agree about locking of solved topics, but I think Moderators should do it, not the OP.

Basically, I'm against locking the solved topics. In the future, a discussion can be reopened to improve the solution given or to spot another aspect of the problem. I know that users should create another thread but few do it and give the link to the initial discussion. So at least necroposting can relate to an identified issue. And in that case, I think that it's the moderator job to split the topic and give the link to the old thread if necessary. (In the French forum, topics were locked very quickly by moderators and it prevented to post additional solutions or remarks for example; I found that so frustrating that this is one of the main reasons I stopped supporting my own NL forum!)

So I don't see what would be the benefit for a user to lock his own topic. I'm clearly against that too.

I checked the permissions of the Registered users group for the Extension forum and in fact, no role was assigned. So I set it to Standard access and it forbids the locking by the owner. I've also unlocked the topic.
phpBB standard configuration gave the answer...

If a User feels a topic should be locked, he can always ask a moderator to do it.

Edit: A possible reason for a User to wish his topic locked is to stop emails of updates to it. Many people are paranoid about getting emails and think they are in information overload if they get more than one a day - we see this on the Apache dev list. Such people can't cope with several hundred emails a day! They have other ways to stop the emails from later postings to "their" [Solved] topic, but most wouldn't know how.

Hagar Delest wrote:Basically, I'm against locking the solved topics. ...

+1

I'm fine with Hagar's explanation.

I agree with Hagar; when I saw the locked topic I did nothing, waiting for his (and everyone else's) input.

RoryOF wrote:A possible reason for a User to wish his topic locked is to stop emails of updates to it. Many people are paranoid about getting emails and think they are in information overload if they get more than one a day

Just in case it happens, we can advise them to unsubscribe their own topic with the option at the bottom of the thread page.