So... are you simply agreeing with me that the staff should state why they are locking the thread?
Yup. Although the reason for the lock seemed rather obvious to me, it's generally better to leave a bit of an explanation for people who didn't get what's going on.
And now that you mention it and to make it clear... so people won't be considered spammers and be warned if they make 1 spam post?
They have to make more than 1 spam post in the thread for it to be worthy of being addressed?
Well, once again, it is up to the moderator's appreciation.
If a guy wrote a post with 37 smileys in a row and the rest of the text in all caps, it's as disruptive as it can get. On the other hand, something like
that isn't disruptive in any way, even though it's "technically" a post with only smileys. But if it's repeated, it will become annoying (i.e disruptive)
This rule, like a lot of other ones, is up to the moderator's judgement, be it local or global.
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About the removal of the Messages button, I'm not a big fan of the idea. I use the link in the top-right, myself, but I'm pretty sure alot of people can't find it unless they pass the cursor on it.
Considering reports and warnings send automated PMs, keeping a clear access to the messages seems like a priority to me.
The Members button could probably get the boot, but it's pretty rare to see a forum without one of those. Myself, I use the button quite frequently to find people (or distributing awards). I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to use it, so if it really needs to get the boot, it should be replaced by at least a link somewhere in the index page.
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One last note : I've discussed with Jack H, as promised, and the .org domains will be dropped on the next subscription, as planned.
The only ones we will renew will be
kc-mm.com,
kc-mm.net and
brawlvault.net.
Brawlvault.com was already taken.
The global cost : $30 a year. I hope we'll be able to afford it.