I tried asking OzBargainers on a poll whether this should be dropped, but received a rather blunt response from the "system".
OzBargain is a treasure chest of consumer products and services research. It's far more than just a bargain bin! New information is revealed, new people join, some rejoin… Why shush the conversation when each one of us can opt in or out of it?
Why is that? It may be a few people with professional knowledge hashing out the tech specs of a product or service. Or perhaps legal implications. Or market segment trends and forecast…
Or a flame war raging back and forwards wasting mods time to police…
Why police "flame wars"?? o.0
Those not interested in it can just unsubscribe, no?
@wisdomtooth: make the site a more welcoming place? Prevent Doxing? Prevent lawsuits? Plenty of reasons to need mods.
What value does a flame war provide?
@stirlo: None, I reckon. What's its cost? None either. It's just a few kilobytes worth of gibberish no one cares about (but those nurturing a bizarre taste for reading bad drama). What's the cost of preventing it? Throwing possibly useful contributions into the pit fire of the bickerers.
I've wondered this myself. It would make sense to keep them open so members can leave feedback on products after they have used them for a while.
To stop people dragging up 6 year old threads like they do on the eBay forums.
What's wrong with that?? o.0
If one buys something and it breaks a year later, where better to let other people know than on a forum post where people have already manifested their interest in the product?
The deal posts don't get dragged up anywhere, they stay where they are. Forum posts do however.
You can always message mods and ask a thread/post be reopened. I’ve done this a few times on competitions where he draw was way into the future. Generally it’s a good thing to not let old threads drag on especially when it’s just a few people going back and forth.