Ayup. You can link to a closed thread, but you can't bring it to the top of the forum. We have various reasons for closing threads. Most often, it's to direct music discussions to the primary discussion of the subject, so the topic doesn't get split up too much.

Occasionally, we'll close a thread that's gotten nasty, to try to cool things down without deleting posts in the thread that may be quite worthwhile. I suppose you can argue that closing a thread doesn't do anything because people can just start another, but that hasn't been my experience. It seems to cool things down quite well, by defusing an inflammatory situation without the disadvantages of deleting messages. People often do start another thread on the topic, but usually without the tone of animosity that the previous thread had.

I didn't see much that was inspiring in the "Sir John" thread, but it basically was a personal attack, even if there was humor in it. Things had been a bit heated a couple weeks ago, so we're trying to keep a lid on things. Personal attacks, even done humorously, very often turn into an all-out nasty war.
I think we've had enough of the nastiness for a good, long time.
-Joe Offer-