Hi, Scriveners,
How come the “Announcements” forum is locked but I see lotsa replies to topics posted?
Okay, so evidently the forum got locked at some point after it was open, originally…but why???
Thanks. 
We locked it several months ago as people were complaining about excessive posts coming out of it. Some people just subscribe to that one forum with RSS, and don’t really want to see a lot of chatter, they are mainly just looking for news.
shoulda just locked this post and maintained an aura of mystery…
Interesting…I’d have thought these folks’ RSS readers have settings that can cut down on undesirable feeds, but I don’t know since I don’t RSS myself.
Thanks again.
As far as I know, there isn’t an RSS mod that will just post the first in a thread, and nothing else. That would have very limited usefulness I think.
Well, like I said, I don’t know about RSS, but in general I don’t see why software developers should bother pre-determining what would be useful or useless if there isn’t some kind of opportunity cost involved (maybe there is; I don’t know). The principle is simply one of open-ended functionality, which would seem to be in keeping with modern UX practices.
A real shame…for example, I thought the affiliate thread there in that locked forum had some really interesting thoughts which I would have loved to have followed up on myself.
Sorry, I don’t understand the grief here. It is fairly uncommon actually for the announcement boards to be free for all on software forums. There was no “pre-determination” here, but rather a lot of requests that we acted upon. Surely there are more important things to worry about than one area of the forum that is for news only.
Decent point with the affiliate thread though, and there may be a few other threads we could think of moving elsewhere for that reason.
I think that’s the point.
What I found really irritating with that forum when unlocked was an announcement would be made, e.g. Version 1.x is available for download … and it would then be followed by dozens of posts pointing out bugs or features or wishes, which should have been posted in the bugs or wish list fora.
Announcements should just be for announcements from the team, not a free for all. Though the question of where to post about being an affiliate and other matters is confusing. But I don’t think the announcement forum is the place. Perhaps there should be a forum for forum-related and web-site matters.
Yes announcements should be read only.
You can always start a new topic referring to the announced topic in this area and continue a discussion here but I must warn that the thread could be hijacked rather quickly.
Now we could always discuss the dangers of frying chicken in the buff or operating machinery such as an electric pencil sharpener while taking Nyqyl but then that would take all the wonder out of discovering these unspoken rules in the universe…
Soi lets just all drink a shit load of beer and ask Vic-k random questions in sign language.
Here I will start…
Sorry, no grief as such, just find it rather out of proportion for a whole forum to be shut down…reminds me of them zoos killing healthy animals just to make way for new ones! Like, yes, it makes sense from a kind of “business” perspective but seems wasteful, too…
Well, that’s just it: closing interesting threads en masse ‘cause folks’ software can’t do the obvious…hey, okay, no one figured on Y2K either but it just seems like killing cancer by killing the patient!
No, the point is that folks’ RSS software doesn’t have the kind of fine-grain controls one would expect in 2014 A.D. and so a forum gotta get locked up as a kind of hack.
And likewise, those who don’t like a discussion of the announcements can just stop using RSS and log into the forums. Why put the onus on those who’d rather engage the developers in the most obvious on-topic place, right underneath their messages?
Look, obviously I’m not going to change L&L’s business practices, and they made the decision they made based on the facts as they saw them. But if ever there had been a poll, count me as someone who puts open discussion ahead of, I guess, convenience.
Since when has any L&L forum been guilty of not being open. The fact that the moderators have locked their Announcement forum as many people — including me, although I don’t use RSS but I’d see there was a new post in the Announcement forum — were irritated expecting an announcement from L&L only to find a post from a subscriber which should have been in the Wish List forum …
But to accuse L&L of not being open on that basis …
Maybe “open” was too harsh an adjective in that context, then. I should have qualified it with a parenthetical “for lack of a better word at the moment”… 
Yes, L&L is a really open place on the web. I like how they even mention competing products. It’s really honest in a very deep and also light, at the same time, way…cool. 8)