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Is it right for moderators to answer a question and locking other answers to the same question?

I think this act is immoral and a sign that the moderator should have their moderator status revoked.

Clarification: By locked I mean locked and not closed.

Example: Questions on meta.stackoverflow.com tagged as discussion, such as this one, one user answers: "Yes, it is immoral". A moderator comments on the answer and argues that it is not immoral, but cannot back up his comments. Moderator then answers: "No, it is not immoral", and locks the other users answer, thus effectively killing the discussion.

Real world example: Is the language “BrainF_ck” offensive?

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  • 4
    Before claiming "immoral": any example, please?
    – Arjan
    Oct 10, 2010 at 11:34
  • Here's a close eg (he didn't exactly answer): meta.stackexchange.com/questions/65577/…
    – Shady M. Najib
    Oct 10, 2010 at 11:45
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    @Shady, seems unrelated to me.
    – Arjan
    Oct 10, 2010 at 11:50
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    @dalle: Are you aware that there is a status "locked" separate from the status "closed"? This is important because it means we say "closed" when we mean closed and expect you to mean locked when you say locked. An example of a closed question is not interesting when we're looking for an example of a locked question.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Oct 10, 2010 at 12:07
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    @dalle, your "this one" link is wrong. (If you're referring to this very question on purpose: not funny. We need real examples. Links, or it didn't happen.)
    – Arjan
    Oct 10, 2010 at 12:27
  • A lack of non-recursive links makes this noise as far as I'm concerned. Voting to close. I'll check back later and vote to reopen if this gets links.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Oct 10, 2010 at 12:35
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    Your posted example is very poor, and deals specifically with the language that must not be named, not with competing answers. Also you refer to meta as "real world example". It isn't. As seen in this post , people aren't as strict (or ethical) in meta.
    – Kobi
    Oct 10, 2010 at 14:02
  • @Arjan check the answers below, it's locked..
    – Shady M. Najib
    Oct 10, 2010 at 14:05
  • @Kobi: True true, this question perhaps belong on meta.meta.stackoverflow.com.
    – dalle
    Oct 10, 2010 at 14:54
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    Am I wrong to understand that it took you over two hours to come up with an example from a year ago, which as shown in the various revision histories (and just like Kobi already noticed) is not about favouring ones own answer, but to stop the many edits? Voting to close as noise too.
    – Arjan
    Oct 10, 2010 at 16:32
  • @Arjan: Yes, you are correct in being wrong. Even though I had the example in mind before asking this question, I didn't want to pollute opinions with the meta-example before each one had a chance to form their own. Plus there is more to life than SO, had to chop up some wood and visit a farmer before I could update the question. Anyway, locking is a too blunt tool, as I see it. Locking the answer, but not follow-up comments, wouldn't effectively kill the followup discussion for the answer, which is usually in the comments.
    – dalle
    Oct 10, 2010 at 16:59
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    I might agree, but I've not seen it happen. And so far, I really think your accusations here are just noise. It's not helping the communities to blame moderators without any real examples. (And why not remove that self-reference in "this one"? I really fail to see the added value of making folks click a link that takes one to this very question.)
    – Arjan
    Oct 10, 2010 at 17:11
  • @dalle: FYI: I have one question I always ask about any stated bad practice or infelicity of design or implementation: is it a real problem? Can the person bringing the problem up show some cases where it's important? What you complained about would be a serious problem if it existed in any numbers, but if you can't show some examples I'm not going to worry about it.
    – David Thornley
    Oct 11, 2010 at 13:50

3 Answers 3

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I think this act is immoral and a sign that the moderator should have their moderator status revoked.

Immoral you say, maybe

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No, it is not immoral.

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  • +1 for the chat, I assume! ;-) (And now I see one cannot even vote on locked posts. Learning something new every day.)
    – Arjan
    Oct 10, 2010 at 12:42
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Yes, it is immoral

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