Well, there's more at play here than just the booboo of closing the thread. There's also the issue of the decision to re-open the thread being done behind closed doors by a group that should not have had any of that power in the first place.

So the issue is one of transparency and responsibility to the community that elected the OCT. As open source flame wars go, this one was quite tame. The thing that I am far more worried about is when a flame war breaks out about an issue that is of real import, as we have had many times before.

Hopefully we will never have to deal with another war like the .LRN governance thread but it will really suck if there is anyone with the ability to close a thread, nuke a user, etc. Further, it will be important that the discussions that take place within the OCT be available for the community to read.

I'm not saying community members should be allowed to participate, but we should be allowed to read them. This is beyond the TIP forum. The decision to close then re-open this thread was not help in the TIP forum.

talli