Binary Revolution Forums: Why threads get closed - Binary Revolution Forums

Someone made a comment to me how annoying it was that I close threads randomly, so I thought I would answer that question.

First of all, I don't close threads randomly. As a matter of fact, I rarely close threads. Our entire moderating teams discusses decisions like that together to ensure that no one gets preferential treatment and at the same time, no one gets singled out unfairly. Once we agree that a thread has become a dead end for whatever reason, it may be closed. How we we determine that? Well there are a few reasons...

1) SPAM. If a thread starts, or ends in clear and obvious SPAM, we usually close it. If there is some useful information in the thread, we will try to split the good posts out and move them somewhere appropriate in the forums. If you are here to spam your site, you should leave these forums because you will get caught and banned quickly.
2) FLAMING. This is the most common reason that threads get closed. Sometimes they start as flames, other times the end up turning into flames and there is no longer useful information being posted. When this happens, you can usually bet that there were warnings issued to people who were involved even if you do not see it. We do this to keep the forums on topic, useful, and friendly to everyone. If anyone doesn't like the way that we moderate, they should probably leave. It will make our job easier and enhance the overall enjoyment of the forums for everyone else, which is a win-win situation for us since that is what we are trying to do.
3) USELESS POSTS. This is very rare, but on occasion someone will post a question that is devoid of content or intellectual benefit. The truth is, we try not to make any assumptions on what is useful or useless because everyone has different views. The problem is that it needs to be posted in the appropriate place. We rarely close things in off-topic, so you can post useless crap there all day. That is what it is for. But if you post silly or worthless posts in other forums, they will most likely be closed. Search for answers first, give people the benefit of the doubt when they answer you, and be appreciative and respectful of your fellow members. If you are not adult enough to do this, then you should leave these forums. And if you are going to leave in a huff and post a flame of how much you hate me and BinRev and how much I have wronged you, at least do it in the proper forum in the off-topic area on your way out.
4) ILLEGAL MATERIAL. WAREZ is almost always an insta-ban. I still cannot believe how many times we have to ban people for WAREZ or posting other illegal material even though it is clearly in the rules. You do not see warez anywhere else in the forums, so why post it? There are other forums for this sort of content and BinRev is not it. If this is why you are here, then you should also leave the forums.

But apparently some people think that there is a 5) RANDOM reason for closing threads as well. I guess technically, we could play that card if we wanted to. We started these forums and built them to what they are today. I pay for them out of my pocket, so yes, technically I can do whatever I want them. But again, this is why we have a moderating team in place so that even I cannot abuse power. If a single moderator was to abuse power or I starting abusing my power, you can damn sure bet that there would be a huge revolt by the entire moderating team.

If you have had a warning, or a thread closed/moved, or any sort of action from the moderating team or myself, I want you to think for a second why we did it. If you think we enjoy it or want to piss everyone off, think about it...does that make sense? Why would we do that? The truth is that for every PM or comment that you send one of us complaining about us closing your thread, we have gotten several other PMs from other members complaining about you and your threads! Your peers don't like what you are doing and we are representing them. So you turn your misplaced anger away from us, and back towards yourself.

So, just to be clear: We welcome everyone to BinRev. WE WANT YOU HERE! We do not care about your experience or skill level. We don't care about your age, your gender, your skin tone, your nationality, or anything else. But what we do care about is that you respect the rules that we have set forth and that have been working for years. You will respect your fellow forum members, and the moderating team. We treat everyone equally and if you violate the rules and a thread get closed on you, or worse yet, you get banned, it because you did not follow the rules and advice that we have presented to you in multiple places. If you do not like these policies, you should leave this forum. The other 99.99% of our users thank you for making it a better place by leaving.