Who petitions SI for such elimination, anyone, or the thread "founder" only?
Anyone can. But see below.
Can it be done to reduce "competition" to a leading thread on the same subject?
No.
Is there a time of "inactivity" required to eliminate a low activity?
It's my understanding that if a thread is inactive for a certain amount of time, it seems to disappear from searches, but if someone then writes a new post to it, it'll be brought back into the index. I don't know how long this period of time is, or how you go about finding a thread that's "died". I'll bet someone here knows, though.
Are there sometimes issues of "muzzling" involved and how do you handle these?
Yes, there are. We won't shut down an active thread unless the thread itself is a violation of the Terms of Use. The most common (but still quite rare) scenarios are when the thread is a personal attack or an advertisement.
SI threads often have "ardent" bulls and "ardent" bears arguing various points,
elimination of now "silent" thread that had important information may impede
reaccessing this information.
You're absolutely correct. An old thread can contain important information or history, whether it's currently written to or not. We won't remove a thread because it's "defunct".
There might even be issues relating to the first Amendment
More a Terms of Use thing. If it doesn't, in our opinion, violate the letter or spirit of the Terms of Use, it generally won't get deleted.
Regards,
SI Admin (Bob) |
