Hi Cider,
No, you've not done anything wrong again! In fact, I was really grateful for your apology and was really pleased to see things moving on.
The locking occurred as a result of your second post in that thread: at that point things seemed to have reached an impasse and I didn't see how further posts could move things in a positive direction. So I alerted Admin (the only person who can lock a thread) and suggested that that thread might be a candidate for locking.
Locking stops further replies from being posted, and occurs for one of two reasons:
- Posts that are not really breaking the rules, but may be controversial or generating into "chaos" where member replies start to get "out of control". Threads are locked in this circumstance to just keep the peace. Threads like this are a rare occurance, but is sometimes necessary.
- A thread is excessively long and difficult for forum members to navigate and read easily. When threads get long, they become paginated, which means that members have to click on a Page 2, or Page 3 link, etc. to see more posts in the thread. When posts gets to 3 pages or more, it becomes a hassle to navigate and could be resolved by starting a new thread on the same topic. But some threads just won't die and can go on, and on, and on. Moderators may decide what threads are getting too long, but a good rule of thumb is any thread over 50 posts is a good candidate to be locked.
At the point I contacted Admin, I thought we were in the territory of the first reason. I was wrong: I think what happened afterwards was very productive and I do thank you for that. Unfortunately I didn't spot the new posts till after the thread was locked!
Thanks again, Cider.
Rosie x