Why was my thread locked?

https://www.fruityrumpus.com/forums/t/homestuck-feels-like-it-has-a-discomfort-with-achillean-romance-and-characters

The thread in question.

i locked it because at the time it had gone a week without new responses and frankly the conversation was going in circles and seeing thinly veiled misogyny and transphobia wasnt fun lmao i will unlock it again for you to add whatever you want as a final statement and locking it again

Alright, I've taken some time to really think about how to reply to this and I'm still not sure what to say.

Are the accusations of thinly veiled transphobia and misogyny aimed at me? If that is a sentiment held amongst the mods, I'd have hoped it would be brought to my attention so that I could either apologize for something I overlooked in my behavior and wording or failed to acknowledge in what someone else may have said.

I don't want, as a trans person myself, to ever make other trans people feel that way and I don't want women or fem aligned individuals to feel unwelcome in spaces I'm involved in either.

A remark like this makes me feel reluctant to continue the thread because it seems the whole topic has ruffled more feathers than I intended, I can't quite grasp if that "lmao" is supposed to be to lighten the tone of the message or be sardonic?

my lmaos r not malicious this is just the way i type n i suppose i can give u a more detailed explanation on what i meant: yes u expressed transphobic n misogynistic sentiments in ur thread and i did in fact tell u one of ur remarks was misogynistic in my replies but there was nooo case in arguing anymore because we were going in circles i already said it, several other ppl pointed out ur reductive thoughts abt female characters n lesbian relationships and it felt like the conversation wasnt moving forward at ALL and at the moment it seemed like the best option was to let the conversation die out and locking the thread because, again, it wasnt productive and it felt like it got worse the longer it went on. that's all lol if ur confused you can reread ur thread and you'll see what i mean

I do remember you saying that it felt misogynistic to reduce Rosemary's issues to "Dirk the big meanie broke them up" but I didn't really know what to say, because I don't think at any point I reduced their relationship's problems down to just that?

I was discussing solely from the perspective of MEAT how Dirk interceding in their relationship and the narrative pushing for a perspective of grooming (which even the narrative itself implies to be of a sexual nature) was a weird angle to take given the sexualities of WHO it involves and their previous narratives.

I've gone over my thread again and and most of it seems rather civil to me? And lacking of any ill will towards any party present? At the time of it locking, it didn't seem negative in the slightest so I'm very confused. Sorry.

It's very hard to perceive tone over messages but I just want to clarify that I really do just want to understand because this has blindsided me. I just wanted to discuss the perspective of how Homestuck feels and I was going to add a huge comb-through of Homestuck's content to extrapolate all of that feeling, but it kind of just feels like that's going to be read as something other and I don't want that.

@anthy
Genuine question, unfortunately requiring that I break my not at all established character to ask it.

I scrolled through the forum rules a couple times and I'm unsure how to feel about a thread being locked without warning/statement under one moderator's discretion. There is a rule about if approached by a mod about your behavior be respectful but the problem described seems to be with the discussion.

There isn't a no discourse rule, and there's no guideline to say when and why a thread might be locked. I get that the site is new but it makes me squirm a bit to see administrative power flexed this way over what feels like just not liking a thread.

I'm not in full agreement or disagreement with Dandy or you to be clear, I didn't have much interest in the thread myself past a few comments and checking in to read some of the interesting viewpoints as it kicked off, but my point stands that this decision makes me squirm a bit.


As an aside, I guess a mod could just lock a thread they don't like if that was just how the site worked but in that case perhaps a "your thread can be locked if:" faq on the rules would be helpful. New forum growing pains are killing me but such is any new endeavor I suppose ^^

I'm with girl eridan on this. Having a more robust list of public guidelines for what is required for a thread to be locked, and then giving a clear reason for why it was locked in relation to those guidelines would be really helpful. It might also help to differentiate between thread-related offenses and *user* related offenses. Like banning people from a thread because they are being assholes is different to locking the thread itself for the same reason, if that makes sense?

Also, semi-related, @anthy, it might be helpful for posts made by moderators in an official capacity to be highlighted or differentiated in some way, and give mods a lil icon or smthing? To make it clear whether you're grabbing a mod's attention by doing something rather than bringing someone else into the discussion, or something like that.

That's not really a job for you or the other mods to worry about directly, to be clear, but I figure you'd know where to put little suggestions like that in the consideration pile.

> Also, semi-related, @anthy, it might be helpful for posts made by moderators in an official capacity to be highlighted or differentiated in some way, and give mods a lil icon or smthing? To make it clear whether you're grabbing a mod's attention by doing something rather than bringing someone else into the discussion, or something like that.

In my experience, a mod typing "Mod note: " followed by whatever moderation related message they're conveying is sufficient to express "I'm acting as a moderator right now."

I guess to add on to what others are saying, is there any kind of clarity that can be given on how a thread being locked is decided? Is it a singular mod's choice or is there some kind of vote?

I reread the thread again and tbh I do agree with it getting locked, the mod did give sort of a warning with pointing out the misogyny in a reply there and he also gave sufficient reasons here.

Also, the thread sorta veered off topic anyway? If there's still parts of the discussion that have somehow not been touched on in these circular arguments you could maybe ask to make a thread about them?