Starting today, you may noticed that some discussions will be locked, closed to new posting. All forums need to be cleaned out occasionally, clearing the dead weight and weeds to make room for fresh thoughts and ideas.

I've locked some of the old-tyme threads over in Ring of Fire to start; these are discussions that have been around for quite some time and only get enough activity to pop them up to the top of the list once a month or so.

I'll be doing this once in a while to keep things fresh; I may also wield this power if things get unruly or stray too far off-topic, or if a discussion is truly stupid. Hopefully I won't have to do it very often, but it's nice to know that the capability is there.

That explains Ken's mysterious disappearing duplicate topic....

In Response to zamphir (#3261):

I think that duplicate topic never existed outside of your mass hypnosis. I only pressed submit once and didn't use the Back or Forward buttons.

I reckon its mysterious disappearance was also part of the mass hypnosis.

In Response to luvrhino (#3263):

If it were any two people other than Haddie and I, I would subscribe to the theory of mass hypnosis.

Given that Haddie saw it and I saw it and our world views are so vastly different, I claim it happened. At least, I claim it occurred in a hallucination so consensual as to be indistinguishable from reality.

In Response to zamphir (#3265):

I have hallucinated before, that was no hallucination. Also, I am quite small in stature, so 'mass' hysteria is also out of the question.

The duplicate is in hiding, somewhere...

I have a separate question.

You're only saying that you're locking the discussions. Is there any intent to actually delete them?

Through experiential evidence, I am hypothesising that Karma includes a weighting factor that is based on the number of messages you've posted (more specifically, the ratio of un-moderated messages to moderated messages). If this is the case, removing messages will change the karma of everyone involved.

In Response to zamphir (#3354):

I don't believe that karma is affected by the number of posts, but it's irrelevant -- I don't have any plans to delete threads unless absolutely necessary.

In Response to jon (#3355):

This is a strange site:

Fake diploma

Fake diploma http://www.diplomaservices.com

Irene

In Response to Lonely Goatherd (#5689):

My favorite is the line, "Fake High School Diploma? No Problem!"

In Response to daubergoat (#5696):

And that reminds me, Jon-

did you say something about forums going massively and inexhorably off-topic being a bad thing?

In Response to Haddie (#3266):

`Twas no hallucination! `Twas the work o' the beast it was! I seen it with me own eyes I did. Happened to a few posts o' me own!

Ok, I don't know what accent that was supposed to be, but I'm done now. I think I've just been playing Giants too long, listening to those Smarties talk...

In Response to daubergoat (#5697):

Yes, I believe I did.

I can't decide if this is off-topic, though, given the context.

But it's fun to lock threads.