VirginMediaPhil wrote:That's a strange decision to take. Off topic threads should be locked as soon as the off-topicness gets out of hand, which it clearly has here.
Obviously you people haven't heard of internet forum etiquette, or netiquette for short.
actually, netiquette is short for internet etiquette - more referring as a general reference to communications via the internet, and the beauty OF the internet (and in particular, forums) is that it facilitates groups of similar minded people to gather and discuss topics which they all have in common.
by allowing topics which have little substance to wander off course, and become centered around other material - it allows the users of the forum to interact on a social level
organically, as opposed to restricting general interaction specifically to their labelled threads. this interaction enables the users to form friendships which transcend the topic of the forum, thus allowing the relationships to grow akin to relationships in the 'real world'. if conversations in real life were finished whenever they wandered from the original topic, there wouldn't be many conversations over 5 minutes.
by your logic, we should not even have topics which are related to anything but 'the chris moyles show', as it would be inefficient to have a forum about the show, in which we did not discuss the show, in the same way which it would be inefficient to discuss topics which have occurred organically in a thread which already exists, and has lost it's purpose.
good lord, why have i written this when drunk.