Batboard

The moderators have the ability to lock a discussion thread on the board when the topic violates one of the board rules or policies. Situations can include:

• The topic has gone off-course from the original discussion.
• The topic has become a flame war between participants.
• The topic violates Intellectual Property, RSS rules, or other issues that arise that aren't covered in this FAQ, but need to be resolved.

Locking a topic is usually used as a last resort. A member of the Moderator Team should first suggest that the members return to discussing productive material, and not continue on topic. If the topic has gone on an extreme downhill tilt, a Moderator may choose to lock it. At any time that a Moderator locks a topic, he/she will provide a unbiased reason why (e.g. the Moderator should not provide an opinion on who is right/wrong with respect to the subject of debate.)

Topics may also be locked when there are conceivably no more constructive comments to be added to the thread.

A member may not make a follow up post to a thread after a topic is locked. If a member does, the posting will be removed, and the member will be contacted.

While this FAQ can't cover every time a topic is locked, it should provide reasonable explation for every topic that is locked, it should provide insight into why it was locked in the first place. A reasonable attempt should be made to split the off topic discussion from the actual useful information that might have been posted.