This thread started by Spaw was essentially the same discussion as the thread we're in now. When we let the discussion get spread out over four threads, Shambles feels driven to copy all of the discussion into each of the threads. That confuses us lesser intellects, and gives an unfair advantage to those who copy-paste things instead of actually discussing them.
So, sorry, Spaw, your thread is closed and will be allowed to die a quiet death.

In general, I think it is a good thing to discuss Mudcat policy with the community - but when the discussion gets spread over countless threads, it becomes a morass of misinformation and partial information. With some coaxing, Shambles kept his discussion of thread title changes mostly in this thread (673 messages as of now). Since thread closure is a different topic, I suppose it's appropriate for it to be in a separate thread - although I think most of the answers to Shambles' questions have been given many times before.

As for this thread being closed for several hours last night, all I can say is that as far as I can tell, the closure was inadvertant. Whatever the case, I reopened the thread as soon as I found out about the closure. And the world did not end because of the relatively brief closure of the thread, so I guess it's all OK. No doubt, Shambles will try to make a big issue out of this temporary thread closure, but I don't see how it can be construed as a big thing. If somebody had a novel and profound thread they were unable to express because of this thread closure, then I'm sorry. But generally, I think it's safe to say that this all has been said before.

Shambles, we would all be so much happier if you could strive for novelty and profundity - instead of striving for mere quantity of verbiage. Repetition is teejus.

-Joe Offer-