LAST EDITED ON 11-21-05 AT 11:28 PM (EST)

Q: Why are so many threads locked?

A: Here are the most common reasons:

1) It's a duplicate topic. This is by far the most common reason. When in doubt, please join an existing discussion instead of starting a new thread. Read first, post later - it's a good rule of thumb, and it's one that shows respect for your fellow posters. It also means they'll be more likely to find and read your message.

2) It's in the wrong forum. Posters post about one houseguest in the General Discussion forum, or post a general topic in the Individual Houseguest forum. We used to move them, but then that just led to a whole bunch of "Where did my thread go" threads popping up and cluttering the forums.

3) There was a serious guideline violation in the topic. The moderator didn't want the posters to be fueling a flame war and decided that locking the topic was the best course of action.

4) It's not related to the show. These forums should only be used to discuss SO, not off-topic personal issues. And they definitely should not be used to discuss moderator decisions - that's a violation of guideline XIII.

Q: Why don't the moderators explain exactly why a particular thread is locked?

A: Each moderator handles things differently. Some explain, some don't. Besides, the moderators who volunteer on these forums already spend more time on the 3 SO forums than they do on the 70+ other forums on this site, so it's not reasonable to expect them to write a detailed explanation for every single lock. When there are literally dozens of alerts in our inboxes, we tend to lock first, explain later.

Edited to add: There's another big reason we don't add explanations. If we reply, it bumps the message back up to the top of the forum, and that pushes the active discussions further down the page. That makes it harder for posters to find the existing active discussions, and just makes it more likely that a new duplicate thread will be started. It's a vicious cycle.

Q: How do I contact a moderator?

A: Let's start with how NOT to contact a moderator. Don't start a new thread to ask a moderator a question. Don't post a reply in an existing thread asking a moderator a question. The correct way is to email or PM. And don't expect an answer right away - we are volunteers, after all. As the guidelines say, you can't expect us to be here 24/7/365.

Q: Someone's breaking the rules. What do I do?

A: There's only one thing to do, and it's explained in our guidelines. You hit the Alert button at the bottom of the post. And then you leave it alone. You don't respond to the violation yourself. And once a moderator has addressed the issue, you don't chime in on the moderator's decision. Over the years that this site has been around, we've found that's the best way to keep flame wars from taking over. Leave the problems to the mods, and move on to discussing the show.

Q: I have a question about how to post on the forums (ex. how to reply to someone else) or about a term I've seen used on the forums (ex. bump). How can I get an answer?

A: That's what the Help Forum is for. Please ask your questions there.

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The duplicate threads are getting way out of hand, folks. It's frustrating to your fellow posters, and it's frustrating to the moderators to have messages in our inbox like, "Do we really need to have four new threads about what TJ said today?" When a post falls off of page 1 in less than an hour, then the duplicates have gotten way out of hand. We don't need multiple threads discussing Lisa's BOR. We don't need one thread for those defending Allison and another thread for those who don't like her, with yet another started because someone wants to say something about Allison and another houseguest. What we need is for posters to read first, post second - your fellow posters deserve that consideration.