Can someone tell me what it means when a forum topic gets "locked," and isn't accepting any more new contributions?  It doesn't seem to be a function of the number of posts, since some topics get locked with only a few dozen responses, whereas others continue after hundreds of responses.  Similarly, it doesn't seem to depend upon the amount of time a topic has been in existence.  Is it related to the content of the discussion -- perhaps because it's drifting off-topic or becoming unsavory?  I guess that my question is this:  Under what conditions does a topic get locked?

Generally because of this;

The following topics are not allowed in the main public forums or chat rooms:

• offensive/vulgar language
• personal attacks
• religious or political debate
• spammy/pointless/distracting posts
• discussion of illegal activities (drugs, etc)
• advertising competitive sites
• cheating

Thanks, kohai, for the elucidation.  I can see a rationale for all of the categories you're mentioning -- except for the last one (i.e., cheating).  It seems to me that with the advent of sophisticated computing technology, cheating has become a genuinely important and relevant issue for many chess-players -- and especially for people who play on-line.  So, to me it seems strange not to allow discussion of it in chess.com's main public forums and chat rooms.  But, on the other hand, I suppose that chess.com's staff knows all of the why's and wherefore's far better than I do.       

Other times topics have been locked because it is just for view.

Thanks Timotheous & FutbolStar5 for filling in the gaps!  Now I get it.  Cheers!

No problem EricDodson

Naturally I am taking this one to the Court of Appeals...

oh you would love to do that won't you ?

Yes, discussion of ch**ting is not allowed anywhere other than in the one designated ghetto, because it's in the best interest of all chess.com members to remain ignorant of how much cheating goes on here:

Depends on the pope...

Thumbs up.

It's really a shame.  If they locked that topic then all the trouble you went to create your chess.com account is for nothing :(  I'm sure they could just as easily say "spammy/pointless/distracting" as easily as you could say "no notable references" or whatever it was.  (On the talk page were mentions of a book and some article IIRC, not that it matters to those with an axe to grind).

To remedy this loss of effort I suppose you'll have to play some chess here.

Play chess?? Come on!

In my own experience of chess.com the most frequent cause of locking forums is usually personal-attacks.

The wiki thread had enormous amounts of that.

It may have been that chess for dummies or chess for idiots guide IIRC, it supposedly had a section listing good sites to play online or something.  Honestly I don't really remember (and don't own the book).  I followed some link posted on chess.com that went to a wiki page that looked like a forum where people discussed stuff and someone mentioned it.  It's the first time I've seen something like that on wiki and I woudln't know how to find it again.

I notice a lot of wiki articles read like advertisements though.  If deleting chess.com's was part of clean up then that's fine I guess.  If someone wrote an objective sounding article about chess.com I don't see the problem.  I don't know why someone just didn't go in and edit out the advertisement parts, even just making it a stub. 

I don't know any of the people involved, but from some of the accusations (and that odd thread gloating about it being deleted) it seems the people involved weren't being professional... more like little kids.

Is this a backdoor into the same discussion?

Hahaha, this is really a joke

I have no problems dropping the subject.

Sounds like they are doing the same thing to wikipedia that they are doing here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/OGBranniff