I'm curious as to the reason for a thread, who's main question has been answered, to be instantly locked. This seems to happen often in forums like RMXP or RMVX. It seems...counter-productive. Even if a thread's question has been answered questions may very well persist.

I'm not saying this bad or totalitarian, it's just puzzling to me. I don't see the point, or how it's helpful to the community. If anything, it's detrimental as it inhibits in-depth discussions which tend to grow organically from simple topics.

I think you would do well to let such conversations continue. It would improve the community, and help improve individual members' knowledge.

That is exactly why. Each thread ideally contains a single question. This makes it easier to organize (and later find via searching) a large amount of aggregated content. Also, what typically happens is people bring these topics up from the dead after months/years for similar, but not identical problems or even just to add a "thanks", which is nice, but unnecessary and serves only to clutter the boards with old, irrelevant posts showing up near the top of the first page.

That said, I'm not a mod here, just my $.02

Think about it, we have this Help forum to answer questions that people have versus having a single "Help" topic.
Imagine the questions that would go unanswered and the difficulty people would have in finding the answers to their questions (searching multiple pages of a single topic looking for answers to questions they may have asked a day ago, but new questions and answers exist which force them to search through the topic, post by post, for the relevant posts to their question).

As mentioned by BigEd, it's much more organised.

Besides being organised, it really isn't a big deal to have to start your own topic whenever you have a question.
It takes the same amount of time and effort to make a post as it does to make a topic (specifically: when asking questions in this forum; obviously non-help forums do require more time and effort in creating entire topics, however this forum is a help forum and if someone has a simple question, then that's all they need to ask). =]

Further, there are some questions that are/were asked multiple times, and for these questions we've created pinned topics that answer said questions.

Really, that is all that is necessary. If someone wishes to discuss something, or question it, they can simply start a General Discussion topic (unless it is just a question that needs answering).


I hope that answers your question. =]
(And yes, for the most part we leave the topic open for a while to ensure the question is answered. We usually just lock the topic once it gets into the "thanks / you're welcome" stage; meaning that the question has been answered and any new questions can simply have a new topic - even if it is slightly related.)

What BigEd said.

It's exactly the reason why we close them.

I'm constantly closing threads in the RMXP section when people answer them. People can turn it into a topic just to get posts, or they can necropost. And that ISN'T good for the community.

I agree with what everybody else has said. It keeps it much more organized, versus people asking all their questions at once. In any case, it's also frustrating when you get the "Help Me" threads with nothing in the title or subject, until you've opened the post. So a big kudos to you, Turkwise, for being specific.

On a side note, we do have the Entertainment section where a lot of discussion, spam, and games take place, and lots of people enjoy it, myself included. I think I've come to know more people from this community in that area alone than a lot of the other sections, so if you are looking to learn more about people on this community, you may want to take a looksie in there.

Thanks for the thorough replies and clarification of your policies.

I suppose it's something I don't agree with 100%, but I do see your side of it. I just get the feeling it may dissuade people from further conversations about a topic once it has been locked. But I suppose the nature of these engine-specific forums leans more towards "How do I do X" than "Let's discuss the pros and cons of X" and the like. Though I feel that many question topics have the potential to expand into good discussions. I find such discussions fascinating and engaging. Maybe I"ll have to start a few myself with their own topics.

You can have discussions in the main areas of the Game Engine Forums, but the help topics are locked down once answered ( for the reasons Kread and Big Ed stated).

While searching through the forum to find a solution - the locked and solved topics will always have an answer,If it is not the one a person wants then they can open a new topic.

There is plenty of discussion areas on the board. General and Serious, Game Engine Discussions and the Theory and Design section.

Your question has been answered, and this thread willl now be locked.

I kid, but this is my counter argument. Although I fully understand why threads may be locked when they've been answered, just because a thread has been answered it doesn't mean the discussion has stopped; like in this thread. Although I suppose in this case these threads are probably moved to theory discussion?

Yup, it will right now.

That being said, concerning help requests, an answer generally ends up all discussion, because the point of those threads isn't to generate discussion in the first place.
But you know, we don't close all the answered threads because, well, we don't notice each and every of them...

:x