Hi Dave,
Thanks for the comments. I'll try and answer what I can.
I see that Dave has just replied so that answers your first question!
And by the way Al - as much as I'm sure you are doing things for the good of all, I'm still very disturbed about topics being locked to 'stop further discussion by others'.
Those two topics were locked for exactly that reason. The people involved were discussing their issues in private and I wanted to avoid anyone pouring more fuel on the fire, even in a well meaning way. That succeeded. Perhaps I should have explained that better but my priorities were to stop the non-astronomical conversations and take them offline.
If someone posts here such that it is offensive, then it is the user who should be moderated. The solution is not to lock the whole topic - that's blanket censorship. And sorry, I don't like it.
And unless someone is being offensive, launching a personal attack or whatever is deemed inappropriate, what gives the moderators the right to 'stop further discussion by others'? Seemed further discussion by anyone who wanted to raise a point was stopped...
I take it you are referring to the original thread. That had gone way off topic, to put it mildly and I decided to lock it to stop further degeneration. In parallel I was in contact with the main players offline to discuss the issues, and we had very frank but constructive discussions; thanks to those involved. I don't think this would have been possible on the board itself if it remained open, especially if others intentionaly or not got dragged into the arguments.
Now that we have discussed and sorted out the issues its been mutually agreed to delete the posts in question, and to re-open the threads for astronomy related discussion. This should be ok for anyone who wants to continue on the topic. If people want to discus the specific issues around the locking of the threads (ie 'you should/should not have said that' etc. I'd rather it was kept to private communication and not publicly dragged out.
Sorry to bang on about this but I think the issues today raise some very crucial questions about 'moderating' these boards.
Yep they do. However in the past I have recieved a lot of feedback regarding some threads. Those threads have all been A&S related, and just about every possible aspect of AI/S&S/IFAS has been discussed there in the past. The feedback I got was nearly all along the lines of "Oh god not again, we've been here before, the same arguments are in the archives, can we stop this and get on with astronomy". This time, I felt that the thread was not going to be any better and locked it - in fact I've recieved thanks for doing that from a couple of people! Then with concensus deleted the posts.
And by the way, as a moderator on another board, I know its a fine line and its a thankless task - so please don't read anything personal into this Al. Its not about you, its about moderating.
Perhaps some very clear guidelines are in order? I think this was brought up in the topic before it was locked.
No worries. I relaise that the action this time was a very different approach than usual, but its feedback from people here that tipped me towards that course of action. Generally there is no problem moderating here, but sometimes when you start, especially when you stupidly start with an ott post when a pm would have done, all hell can break loose. This time rather than let it drag on, its been all mostly deleted and we can carry on with astronomy - at least this way things get back to normal in 24hours. I would appreciate if people could let me know their thouhts one way or the other on the way this was sorted (- via pm not here!) I know there is a mixture of opinion but I'd like to guage it; I'll discuss the feedback with the other moderators.
Cheers,
~Al
  