Board Thread:Consensus Track/@comment-3279282-20180219212453/@comment-1251315-20180221165707

There is no real "way" to close the section. There is a script running that can do this, but that's reliant on factors that a user can circumvent, making it "closed in name only" (people who do circumvent it get warned anyway, or at least I hope they do).

I agree with AsianReaper. The solution is either:
 * 1) More users with mod tools that can be trusted with the right judgement to use them properly, or
 * 2) Mods are more aggressive in stamping out problematic threads and being generally more "harsh".

I see the issue as being this:
 * 1) Mods are too busy to see every single post, thus complaints arise that "they don't do anything"
 * 2) Users expect mods to intervene for them, but as Point 1 illustrates, they can't be here 24/7 to read every single post.
 * 3) Users don't know how to calm themselves or self-moderate a discussion, which means they get out of control.
 * 4) Users don't know who they are supposed to be contacting to get assistance in a problematic discussion.

Point 1 can be solved with more moderators being appointed. Point 2 can be solved by educating users to contact moderators directly on their user talkpages. Point 3 is unlikely to be solvable because I doubt many people want to be accused of "backseat moderating" or "minimodding".

It is feasible for Point 4 to be solvable by making it somewhat more clearer who the mods are on this wiki. We already have the Discussions Moderator badge on profiles and the (Moderator) text on posts they make, but this might not be clear enough, or people may assume that mods commenting in threads are not acting in a mod capacity. This also becomes problematic when, as far as I'm able to see, the number of sysops on the wiki is much lower than it used to be (offhand, the sysops that are active are Sarutobii2 and Omnibender, I'm not sure how active Seelentau is these days), so it's harder for a user or mod to find someone they can contact for help.

So for me, the solution is to appoint more mods and get sysops more involved with the forums (as best as possible). However, like AsianReaper indicated, mods need to be calm and fair and cannot just go around closing threads because of personal opinion (or because they were active in the thread) or they will be accused of "abusing their power" or "being biased". Therefore, a delicate balance must be struck to solve the issue. Closing the whole section will not solve very much at all, imo.