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This is in a way a followup on We have a very large & widening gap between questions and answers. How do we fix it?. As a response to that, I am trying to downvote/close some old post we probably can do better without (mainly to reduce clutter, so it becomes easier to find the good stuff). But a few are locked (by community user) for no reason I can understand. Why? Such posts cannot be downvoted or deleted.

Some examples: https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/15691/nonextensive-statistics and https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/49969/questions-about-seqtreedisplay-and-graphviz. (Note that both questions have been automatically deleted in the meantime. High-rep users can still see them. No, you are not missing much.)

Shall I just flag for unlocking?

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you make it more specific? $\endgroup$
    – Tim Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 10:54
  • $\begingroup$ Both examples you link seem to have been closed by mods. Was something changed about them after you asked? $\endgroup$
    – Stephan Kolassa
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:13
  • $\begingroup$ To be honest, I don't understand why these have not long been deleted, as they should have been by point 7 of this list. Does anyone have an explanation? $\endgroup$
    – Stephan Kolassa
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:15
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    $\begingroup$ @StephanKolassa Because they were locked until Scortchi unlocked them in response to this Q. Now they will be automatically deleted after some time (I think the script runs daily). $\endgroup$
    – amoeba
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 20:02

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I think the automatic locking by the Community user is somehow to do with migrations of a question from/to this site being rejected. The rules Community follows have changed over time—see Allow diamond moderators to reverse question migrations?. Anyway, please feel free to flag any such questions you think should be deleted & ask a moderator to delete them (I'm having trouble imagining situations where it'd be useful to unlock them just to allow down-voting).

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    $\begingroup$ Well, but is there a point in keeping the lock? I read a bit on meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22228/what-is-a-locked-post and it seems locking can also be used for "heating down" flame wars, close/unclose cycling and other unwanted activity. Years later unlocking seems natural! $\endgroup$
    – kjetil b halvorsen Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 11:46
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    $\begingroup$ @kjetilhalvorsen: If there are any you think should be merely unlocked then flag for unlocking. The examples you've given are clearly off-topic, without answers, & already closed; it seems they were locked when migration didn't work for some reason: I'm suggesting you flag them & others like them for immediate deletion, sparing yourself & others a little work, & reducing clutter more quickly. $\endgroup$
    – Scortchi Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 11:56
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    $\begingroup$ (I've not deleted them yet, just so that other readers of this Meta post can see what we're talking about.) $\endgroup$
    – Scortchi Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 12:06
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    $\begingroup$ I was not aware that this can happen. Here are some candidates for @kjetilbhalvorsen: stats.stackexchange.com/… (search for locked:yes duplicate:no score:0). Note that merged questions end up locked, that's why I put duplicate:no. Also some threads are locked "for historical significance" (which I find a questionable practice most of the time, see stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/482), that's why I put score:0. One can replace it with answers:0. $\endgroup$
    – amoeba
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 13:17
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    $\begingroup$ (BTW, I noticed that some Qs are merged but not marked as a duplicate, e.g. stats.stackexchange.com/questions/13159/…. That's a bit confusing.) $\endgroup$
    – amoeba
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 13:17
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    $\begingroup$ NB I've already deleted several posts from @amoeba's query that kjetil flagged, & a couple more - there may not be much left to do. $\endgroup$
    – Scortchi Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 20:20
  • $\begingroup$ @Scortchi Re merged Qs that are not marked as duplicates: do you know if it's always like that? Or does one need to tick an extra tick when merging so that the Q gets marked as a duplicate? Or did it maybe change at some moment? $\endgroup$
    – amoeba
    Commented Jul 10, 2018 at 7:05
  • $\begingroup$ @amoeba: I think it's always like that - the question stub is locked by merging & linked to the target, but not otherwise marked as a duplicate. $\endgroup$
    – Scortchi Mod
    Commented Jul 10, 2018 at 8:33

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