OP's should not be able to have mods lock their threads on a whim, ESPECIALLY if the thread still features valid and lively discussion of it's intended topic.

Furthermore, a thread is not your property. It belongs to the community, and the community should be able to discuss the topic at hand for as long as they want to unhindered by a lock request from the topic creator if he thinks things aren't going in the way he wants them to.


An opposing alternative: If mods are still wanting to lock any thread on request, we should simply give all OP's a one-use lock button, allowing them to silence discussion in the topic they created on whim. This way they not need to wait for/pester a moderator to do so.

I was actually about to make this thread.

If you want to let OPs lock their own threads whenever they want, make that a standard feature at the bottom of the page.

Fuck, replace the print button with it.
If you're not willing to do that, then you should treat an OP's report with the same esteem as any other person's.

I suggested giving OPs the ability to lock their own threads a long time ago, but that idea was rejected

As for taking away locking threads "on a whim" entirely, meh, I don't really think that's a great idea. If someone like Elegiac gets butthurt and prematurely locks a perfectly good thread, someone else who isn't as butthurt can continue the discussion elsewhere in a new thread.

Should we have to make a new thread? I don't know, I don't think it's that big of a deal, to be honest.

As for the thread being the community's property, I guess that's true, but I still think the OP should have full control of when the conversation starts and where it ends. Abuse of this feature (making spam threads/shitposts and immediately locking them) would be met with a warning and then a ban.

(I'd rather we just skip to the ban, but whatever.)