Locking this thread - seriously mods??

So you suggest that they simply let everybody troll at will? 

Arent we there now?

all hope is lost.

when you let them fill the forums with 70 threads of absolute rubbish they won't mind being booted to start up again as they know they will be given plenty of time for a repeat performance.

As the General says, we need the combined might of the RSS to save us.  And preferably a duck.

the RSS had all the answers, when the going got tough the trolls got stuffed.

Locking repetitive threads still makes sense to me - as much as there might have value in the new posts, wouldn't they have had MORE value if posted alongside the other comments on that exact same topic? If the new comment is really that interesting and useful, you could always copy & paste them into the existing thread that I supplied a link to.

We had a brief conversation about it in the moderator group, and although it's not something many of them would have done, neither did any of them have particularly strong objections to it, so if I happen to see something again along those lines without many posts in it, I may do the same thing.

I would argue (as I have done in previous posts in this thread) on the general subject of locking "repetitive" threads (rather than on the one thread in particular that was locked, that

1. It is not necessarily always the case that, as you say, there is more value to posting one's thoughts on a topic alongside other posts on a similar topics. If one judges that previous conversation on a topic may be misleading, and wants to begin on a fresh slate so as to find out about peoples' unprejudiced (by previous discussion) views on a topic, it may make more sense to start a new thread. (Furthermore, in the OP's case there is a distinct difference between creating a thread with his own top 10 list, and replying to someone else's thread on the best players in history, but since I'm talking here in general rather than about specificities, and I've already elaborated on that argument elsewhere, I won't do the same here.)

and more importantly, 2. in any case, it shouldn't be a mod's job to add "value" to a discussion as they see fit. Chess.com has certain terms of service that pertain to posting on the forums, so it needs mods to enforce those terms. That alone should be the extent of the job of the mods (and, for the most part, that has been the case in the past). They should not be using their powers to act as directors of chess-related conversations within the tos, in part because they are not more qualified than the average frequent forum contributor (on chess-related topics) to do so, and because it adds unnecessary restrictions to posting very much legitimate content on the forums.

Basically, my view of appropriate moderation is: If something violates the tos, deal with it. If it doesn't, then aside from moving threads to what you believe to be the appropriate forums (e.g. General Chess Discussion to Off-topic), leave it alone.

They should not only lock the troll threads, they should absolutely delete them and ban the IP of the troll. 

Then the trolls may think twice about keep trolling, what would be the point of creating many many threads if they know that they will be all deleted very soon? 

However here it is the paradise for them. They create all the threads they want, no one is deleting them and no one is banning them. Perfect world!

We are not talking about troll threads.

You should have started another Bobby Fischer is the greatest of all time post.  Those arent repetitive <eye roll>

they listen, their customers tell them what they want, but they don't hear.

So if someone new to this site wishes to discuss something that others have talked about before (as in nearly everything chess-related) what should they do ?

1) necro an old thread (bad)

or

2) post a new repetitive thread (apparently also bad)

or

3) realize there is no good option and they aren't really allowed to talk about things others have talked about before ?

(d) Search the forums for any relevant previous threads and if you do feel that you want to create a new thread, include links to one or more of them as context.

Also, this

I never knew d was the fourth number.  If there are only a few threads of discussion there will be too many posts to keep up with.  Like macer75 says, we are the customers and it should be the moderators' job to prevent forums going far past the rules, not to try to decide what makes good threads.

I fail to understand the downsides to allowing a topic that has already been discussed provided that the new topic brings in new thoughts to the table. Are they running out of server space? That's unlikely.

In addition to that, it is much easier to read when you have content distributed in a number of threads instead of having it all clubbed into a single 300 page thread.

Also in such threads; even if you post a really good comment, it is likely that it will disappear among all the gazillion other comments. So if your comment appears in the 130th page (of a 300 page thread), do you think anyone will ever read it? Most members just read the first couple of pages and the last page and join the discussion with their own comments. So your comment is just a big waste that only adds to the length of the thread and nothing else.

That's super true! Some people keep complaining about the same exact things and their threads don't get locked. And there are, like, over 50 of the same topics. Who thinks we should go on strike!?

Spam!

Hardly to believe the thread isn't locked yet. And now people from the end of the world are talking with each other until the rest of the world gets up again to drop even more spam and turn the thread upside down ...

Yeah, like that's gonna work on a site with millions of users.

Most of them will not know about needing to follow some arcane nowhere-to-be-found rule of having to link old posts to be allowed to post new ones and will simply continue to post.

If this forum had a lot of quality posts to protect you might even have a leg to stand on, but as it is, it was you staff and moderation guys who allowed it to become what it is now.

It's your site and you can do as you like, of course; but if you think about it for a bit you'll probably realize you have nothing to feel smug about.

Yes, that's all in good fun (the thread you linked, that is)... but when a moderator comes in and enforces something so small, and locks threads that are perfectly within the bounds of chess.com rules, that's a whole different story.