Hi everyone!
I know I’ve been very quiet for a while, but it’s Shani, here! I own the website!
It has been brought to my attention that some people aren’t very happy with the fact that we have been closing threads.
That’s understandable! I remember being on the Episode forums and the mods would close threads halfway through a discussion to silence opinions they didn’t like! It was horrible! So, I understand the trauma (for want of a better word) behind seeing your thread closed. It would make you defensive or angry. I get that.
However, there is a method to our madness, I promise! We aren’t closing threads to silence you or because we don’t like you. The only times we would close a thread for a “silencing” reason would be if people were using the Forums to spread bigoted hate or fake news that could possibly hurt people. That or if people were plagiarising.
Other than that, threads are only closed if there is no activity on them for two months.
I’ll explain why:
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We realised that 1 month was definitely not enough time for a thread creator to wait for people to reply and then realise they should probably bump their thread. Two months should give everyone enough time to do everything they need.
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When we have a bunch of open threads that people aren’t responding to, it looks like we have a crappy moderation team. Forums die when the moderation team isn’t doing their job, and we have a very robust staff team in place. We’re here to make your experience as wonderful as possible.
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It should always be quality over quantity. Personally, I would rather have one discussion with 80 people making comments than 80 discussions with 1 reply each! That means people are engaging with each other! That’s the point of a forum, after all!
However…
We have not and we never will set all threads to automatic close.
This is because we want to be able to use our discretion as staff members to tell if a thread would actually do quite well with some TLC. Our leaders, mods and heads are all members of the community with friends, family members and significant others who spend their time on the forums. We aren’t mindless bots. We have a better idea of what needs to be closed and what needs to be bumped than @discobot ever could.
(P.S. I can see when people message Discobot. Just letting you know 
Very funny messages, people!)
We want to make the Forums as much of a democracy as possible. I am attempting to do this in multiple ways:
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First of all, a forum member can always get their own thread closed if they want to. It doesn’t matter if it’s before the 2-month period. Feel free to reach out at any time if you want a thread closed! However, please make it more than 1 day for our own sanity. We’d hate to see 100 people making threads and immediately asking for them to be closed.
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Someone cannot @tag the staff asking us to close someone else’s thread, though. That’s not up for you to decide. If you think something breaks the rules, flag it and we’ll check for you. We’re not your servants. We are your friends and acquaintances. Please don’t treat this place as if you own it. Even I won’t just close a thread if I don’t like it, and I pay over $100 a month to maintain this place! I need a reason.
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We are discussing ways for people to be able to request re-opening threads. We might do an anonymous thread where people get to request one re-open a week. This is something we need to work out the logistics of.
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An OP can always ask for their thread to be reopened, as long as it wasn’t closed for violating the rules. We only ask that you commit to adding something new to the thread instead of just asking for it to be opened and then leaving it blank.
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If the forums activity picks up and we need new staff members, I will be considering a democractic element to the applications. At the moment, we look at a user’s activity and a bunch of other things to decide. We’re looking for a way to add an approval rating side to this application without making it an outlet for anonymous bullying.
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We always listen to complaints and suggestions. Unfortunately, I’m tutoring soon, so I can’t look up the specific threads where people can complain. However, maybe @anon68003072 can help me with that?
I hope that this helps you to see that we aren’t just closing threads to annoy you. I hope it will help you to cooperate with us, too! We are always happy to adapt and change things if it is possible and our users want it! Just work with us!
Please feel free to add any suggestions, complaints or comments below. This is a safe space where no one will attack you! Just make sure you aren’t attacking the @ForumStaff, either!