locked thread frights

[Avan]

So this morning, saw a thread, it was locked, but I didn't know this. I got to it from the 'last reply' link on that board, which gives no indication that its locked, and when in the thread, the new reply button just goes poof, as opposed to turning into say, a plain-text thing that says "locked" or something.

So I'm going along, going to reply, and so I click the left-most link on that set of links on the right, some firefox confimation panel pops up, I think its just FF asking some routine thing again, and then ... nothing happens. And then I'm all like... ok... and I look at the link and it says "notify" and then I panic because I confused it with "report" and thought I just accidentally reported the thread, but then I realized, oh wait, nevermind, its the email notifications, so I just turned it off, and then looked for the reply button. It wasn't there.

D: *even more panic sets in*

The two logical explanations I came up with were: "My account has been locked! What did I do!?!" and "I'm losing crucial parts of my memory! How could I forget where the reply button is!?!?"

I did not get: "The thread is locked"
Why? There was no post saying the thread was locked. 

So I think... either and/or:
1) there should be some more evident way of telling that a thread is locked from within it & from the index
2) a post should always be made stating that its locked

I know that it can be something of a bother to do the second option, from first hand experience, but its been the transcendence forum's policy for quite some time now (and with over half the policies there, one I proposed), and I think its worked out quite well in mitigating confusion and panic attacks. >.> Not to mention PHPBB (Admittedly one of the /few/ things it has over SMF) changes the button to a "locked" button.

[Kobuk]

Maybe if you could clarify what thread you saw that was locked, then I could give you an explanation?

[Avan]

it was kishi's about the party wehre people were being arrested - it was rather bewildering why it never had a post saying it was locked, especially since virtually all threads that are locked here usually do end up having a post saying it locked & why.

[Avan]

This one, fyi http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php/topic,40934.0.html

[Kobuk]

Sometimes the Staff may only need to give a reason to the OP only as it is just the OP we need to contact. Being a curious wolf as you are, Avan, The thread was closed per rule #7 here:
http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php/topic,20851.0.html

[Avan]

Oh, it wasn't /why/ the thread was locked that I was asking, it was /why/ there was no post saying that it was locked.

[Weisseman]

Locked Threads don't always have posts saying they're locked. It's not common practice here that I'm aware of.

[Avan]

Really? I thought it was an unofficial standard.

It at least makes it easy to see that it is in fact locked

[furtopia02]

I had the same scare a while back. I just figured I got banned. I came back later and noticed it was just a locked thread.

[Foxpup]

There already is an easy way to tell if a thread is locked: this icon at the top of the thread, incidentally the one place where people trying to reply to the thread will never look. UI design fail.

[Avan]

But who'd ever remember that? let along see it.

I suppose one of the areas where phpbb somehow managed to triumph smf.