Comment by llamageddon01 on 20/10/2021 at 11:18 UTC*

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies (showing 0)

View submission: The NewToReddit Encyclopaedia Redditica v2

Padlock

Sometimes you will see a little yellow padlock icon on a post. That means the post has been locked by the moderators and people can't comment on it any more. Some mods will pin a comment to the top of the post about why it was locked, but it isn’t required and some don’t. Subreddits use the padlock in different ways:

Some subs lock the post when it has been answered (e.g., r/AskCulinary) and / or the mods deem it unnecessary for the conversation to continue but still want the post visible for people to see and read the info there.

On some it means they have found a lot of rule violations and / or people are going so wildly off topic they will lock the thread to keep people civil and avoid drama.

Some subs may lock things that are controversial if there is already a very similar discussion still happening.

On some subs, it’s because the post has reached the front page and want to avoid a huge influx of non-regulars, trolls or other issues.

Some subs have a maximum engagement they allow on any one post. This is usually fairly high, but not enough to become unmanageable.

On r/NewToReddit we lock posts after 7 days because newbies won’t know that if they comment on an older post they won’t get an answer back, but we still want the posts visible for people to see and read the info there.

Moderators can unlock a padlocked post or comment at any time to open it up for new discussion. If your post on a sub gets locked, you could try modmailing the mods, but there is no guarantee that they will answer or that they will tell you why it was locked. Reddit also automatically locks all posts over 6 months old, and these will show a yellow box icon. Again, this is now an option that mods can turn on or off should they need to.

Padlockmageddon![1] was a “fun” time on Reddit mid 2021 where every OP had their own comments locked on their posts, and you can read not much more about it here[2].

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/pfg8nm/what_does_that_weird_yellow_lock_icon_next_to_a/

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/comments/pfroqg/new_locked_comments/

*Because there is a Subreddit for everything:**

r/Locksmith is the place where Locksmiths of Reddit hang out and talk shop, while r/lockpicking is a subreddit dedicated to the sport of lockpicking. r/locksport have a passion for locks and like to share it with other locksport enthusiasts, and r/LockPickingLawyer is for everything related to the LockPickingLawyer YouTube channel.

Comment by llamageddon01 on 20/10/2021 at 11:18 UTC*

Padlock

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