Suggestion If a thread is locked then at least a brief reason should be included.

uart

Yes I understand that in many cases where a thread is locked the reasons are obvious to anyone following it. Every now and then however I strike a case where the reason is not entirely clear. I think it would be a great courtesy to all members if there was a policy that required any moderator locking a thread to provide at least a brief reason (as the last post in the thread).

Evo

It's should be very seldom that you will find a thread locked without a note at least saying it's locked, so that you know which moderator locked it.

There are times that a moderator gets called away, or experiences a problem and they don't get back to the thread. These should be the exception.

A thread will often get locked due to problematic posts that are deleted, so to the member it may look like a thread was locked for no reason.

If you feel you have a valid reason and must know why a thead was locked, send a PM to the mentor in charge of that subforum, and they can see who locked the thread.

Dr Lots-o'watts

Here's a thread where the reason may not be clear:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=452207

I assume PM means "perpetual motion", but I don't think it's entirely clear. The OP does ask how long could the system last, which suggests he's not necessarily pushing PM.

There is also the mention of "global warming" which may be seen as controversial.

But unless I missed something the main subject seems to be the use of magnets on a track, which seems harmless to me.

berkeman

Please read that poster's words more closely:

That doesn't belong in an active thread on the PF. I think the reason for the lock of that thread is pretty clear.

BTW, another reason that you might find a thread that is locked without an explanation would be on an old thread that has been dormant for a while. Sometimes, depending on the thread title or whatever reason, some old threads become magnets for spam. After deleting a few of these necropost spam posts, I'll sometimes just close the thread to get rid of the annoyance factor. Those are threads that would not normally attract valid new posts, however.

uart

Oh that's an obvious magnet perpetual motion thread. The guy's basically talking about the magnetic equivalent of pendulum from which he wants to extract energy while it runs perpetually. Magnet based perpetual motion threads pop up here all the time (perpetually you might say) and are incredibly annoying. The sooner they get locked the better in my opinion.

I was actually referring to this thread here : http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=449426

The guy linked a published paper on an alternate interpretation of the relativity of simultaneity. I just took the time to read the paper and would have been interested in posting a comment and perhaps asking some questions of the author but before I got a chance the thread was locked without explanation. I suppose it was deemed too close to getting into "crack-pottery"?

berkeman

There was a discussion in the Mentor forums about this thread, and the consensus was that it violated some guidelines. It would have been better to tie off the thread with a post when locking, but I think the Mentor who did it was busy at the time, and didn't get around to it. I'll mention in our Mentor thread that it might be good to tie off the locked thread with a post. Thanks.

Dr Lots-o'watts

Thanks berkeman.