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I could add an answer after this question got locked.

It seems lock is broken

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  • Lock prevents all actions on a single post. Actions include editing, voting, deletion, closing, and flagging.
    – Jarrod Dixon
    Commented Aug 28, 2009 at 1:03

3 Answers 3

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Lock prevents the question from being edited. We use it to stop edit/roll-back wars, among other things.

Now, you also cannot add answers if a question is locked.

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  • hmm... I though you couldn't do anything (including adding comments and answers)
    – juan
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:11
  • The wording should be changed then...to me, locked means the question is locked - you can't make any changes to it.
    – Thomas Owens
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:12
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    And by changes, I include adding new answers, since that changes the contents of the question.
    – Thomas Owens
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:14
  • @Juan: I think it prevents comments from being added to the question. Can you try it out and report back? I'd do it myself, but I'm a moderator, so it wouldn't tell us much if I an do it. :)
    – Bill the Lizard Mod
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:14
  • @Thomas: What wording are you referring to?
    – Bill the Lizard Mod
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:15
  • @Both: We can lock individual answers as well. This is so we can lock a flame war in an answer without affecting the rest of the question/answers. Affording us this kind of granularity is probably the reason behind lock not preventing new answers from being added.
    – Bill the Lizard Mod
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:19
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    Locking does indeed prevent both commenting and editing. But locking a question does not affect answers, and does not prevent new answers from being posted (unless the question was closed also).
    – mmyers
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:27
  • But you can add answers and comment to answers. Now the question is if this is by design or not (I remember in the old days you couldn't add an answer to a locked post)
    – juan
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:29
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    I guess it's by design, so the moderators can lock a question to keep it from being closed. This has happened several times that I'm aware of.
    – mmyers
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 20:53
  • @mmyers: Thanks for confirming that comments get locked as well. As I mentioned, lock does have several uses, and it's handy to have it work at a finer level of granularity than just locking an entire page.
    – Bill the Lizard Mod
    Commented Aug 7, 2009 at 22:24
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For info; if we want to stop you adding answers, we close it then lock it; keeping the two concepts separate allows for a lot more granularity.

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4

Just a note -- we did change the behavior of lock, when applied at the question level, so that it prevents new answers from being added.

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  • When was this changed? Last I locked question I saw a few days ago you could add answers and make edits/comment on everything except the question itself. Strangely though, when I see a locked and closed question you can't vote on the question, but only locked you can.
    – Earlz
    Commented May 9, 2010 at 13:52
  • @earlz nope, locking a question now prevents new answers from being added. as for when see meta.stackexchange.com/questions/13059/…
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented May 9, 2010 at 14:07

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