A couple things to note about what’s been said already:
Flags are here to stay
The flag system is the primary tool for the community to use in addressing issues with posts that need review. Whether it’s inappropriate, off-topic, spam, or something else (as stated in the options when you flag a post), it is the defined process for feedback to come from the community and for some action to be taken (if necessary). The key is that the flag system works for us, and losing it would do more harm than good.
Off-topic flag is here to stay
This particular type of flag is needed for CC at large because of how important it is for threads to have consistent content for new users coming to the site through Google search. It may be of little importance in the Cafe, but in the rest of the site we need a mechanism for keeping conversations on-topic. There’s also no way for us to turn off “Off-topic” for a particular part of the site (I checked).
With that said, the key question it seems is “When should we close threads?” Some say ‘never`, others say ‘when they get circular’, others say, ‘when it gets ugly’. What is the right approach here? We’ve talked about it before here, here, here, here, and here.
If you want to go way back, check these here, here, here, and here. (Also, some of you have been here a looooong time 
.)
Anyway, I stopped searching after a while because there were so many examples of similar conversations happening over the years.
There’s obviously a lot of opinion on both sides of the issue here - instead of debating it here in the thread, I’d like to ask for the following:
- Patience while we figure out a solution that everyone can live with.
- Appreciation for the mods who are so dedicated to making CC a welcoming place while having an often difficult and thankless task.
- A couple of non-mod volunteers to collaborate about solutions for moderation of the Parent Cafe. We would all work together with current mods to figure out how to balance the different needs of various folks coming to CC. I’ll reach out to folks who have communicated on these issues in the linked threads.
Finally, I’m going to take the closing timer off the Vaccine reluctance thread. Why? I took over primary moderation of that thread - it was my decision to close it, but I gave inconsistent reasoning (as some of you pointed out (THANKS A LOT 
). If there was too much debate, or some other unstated reason, I should just say so plainly and take action immediately. It seems there is much more to say and it has been very civil, so I have no problem eating crow and keeping it open. I will keep being the primary mod on that thread tho and will take action should it heat up.
Thank you all for your posts, your passion for CC, and your dedication to this community. We really have something special here and I’m glad to be a part of it.