9:59 AM
@Beofett - re those topics (spanking, gun control, religion etc) one problem we did have is that no matter what we try, very few folks seem able to approach them in the way the community agreed in the meta post on it.
Instead of answering the question, they launch their soap box on why it is wrong to do X
That specific question was closed and opened a couple of times, caused all manner of folks to launch in with the "omg mods all support capital punishment and other illegal things" and it just became messy
I'd rather there could be respectful discourse and those who couldn't should just not try to answer, but that was not happening
So closing completely, while not the preferred option of any of the mods, ended up being the only usable option