I still can't see how starting a thread gives someone any particular rights over it. I mean in a conversation in a pub you wouldn't expect to have someone asserting their ownership rights in a discussion, on the grounds that they broached the topic in the first place.

I suppose, when we have started a thread, we may take a certain parental interest in it, maybe nursing it along to make sure it stays around long enough to pull in participants, but that's not the same thing.

Sometimes you do see people here who seem to think that having started a thread means they have the ability to pull the plug on it when they think it's run its course, or deviated too widely from where it was intended to go, but it rarely works. Why should it?