I appreciate that Mike gave us a heads up that the vaccine post was going to be closed out but it seems crazy to me to not allow people to respond to his post in thread. IMO, it was relevant because it meant silencing the discussion.
And now we have two threads in the community forum on the same topic and the search engine on CC is still not working well so it’s hard for people to find.
I thought there was going to be a move to stop heavy handed moderation on the cafe?
no need.
Whew! Seems like you all started the party before I got online.
Thanks for all the comments - it is helpful for me to review them here instead of the vaccine thread. I’ll read through and comment today.
It’s just standard nowadays (well really for a long time now) on most forums and social media… anonymous users get “offended” at everything and report stuff rather than just moving to a different topic, because they feel that everyone else needs to cater them them rather than the other way around.
The other forum I’m on, using the same platform, does not have “off topic” as a valid reason for flagging:
We used to have a name for those people but it’s been banned.
Count me as another one who does not understand why you would close a thread that is being posted in every single day. I also don’t consider responses to an announcement that a thread is being closed off topic.
The other issue talked about in closing that thread is the length. If that’s the case, why aren’t the retirement thread closed? Or the parents helping parents? Or the diet and exercise one? And a lot more.
The length just doesn’t seem to me to be a consistent argument. And if people are reporting things as off topic, I don’t see the reasoning. Vaccine reluctance has not gone off topic as much as probably most long threads on this forum.
If you want to close it, then that I guess is your decision. But make arguments that make sense. And know that it’s very topical and that it is one of the few topics that brings users to your site.
Now that decisions are out that is.
Someone else summed up why CC shouldn’t be closing popular threads really well:
It would be like a store deciding it won’t carry its most successful item, in terms of sales, any more.
Why do you believe those who disagree with you should “move on to other threads”?
I think the point was to move on to other posts instead of flagging something you don’t agree with.
If someone is posting a position I don’t agree with and don’t feel like I can learn from, I just don’t read those posts. The only time I ever flag is if it’s spam or a blatant personal attack.
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:
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.
Mike - The timer on the vaccine thread is still there for me. (Figured it was more appropriate to post that here though).
And thank you!
Thanks so much! For your patience and most importantly honesty! We appreciate this forum and the intelligent discourse we find here.
That’s why we are so passionate about this forum and our place in it!
Your calm, well balanced and intelligent approach is very welcome. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I am happy to do what I can to improve CC and have it thrive going forward.
Thank you
A post was merged into an existing topic: Vaccine reluctance
@compmom this is the community forum where we debated about closing the vaccine reluctance thread.
I wonder if you could repost this as I think people are interested in your journey.
And I am thrilled that you are going to finally see your daughter soon! So happy!
I see the helpful moderator did it for me already. I have been switching threads too much today! Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
I’d like to ask that you fix first things first. Add me to the list of people who wish you wouldn’t close active threads in part because they are a time suck for the moderators, but I can’t read this thread (or others) because the page is jumping around all over the place because of the ads loading. PLEASE fix this first!
