Okay that's a reasonable place to look for uncensored discussion, but not the official ANN thread.
The ANN was locked, because he made an official forum like many other projects.
No, he made a new ANN which is moderated, and not locked (and has recent posts):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1064326.0The original ANN thread, which was unmoderated, was indeed locked.
In other words, just as gmaxwell said, the original unmoderated ANN thread was locked, and replaced with a private forum and a moderated ANN thread, where discussion can be censored and controlled.
That is a huge red flagAs for gmaxwell, he started fuding, because John had an argument with them on the Bitcoin github, which you would have seen if you read the thread you just quoted. Gmaxwell isn't the hero of the altcoin section, he doesn't just go an investigate projects, he had an agenda because he was butthurt.
His points about transparency and red flags are valid on their face. It is a common (but fallacious) refrain in the altcoin area that criticism can be dismissed if someone has a "bias" or "agenda", while ignoring the substance of the statement (which as I demonstrated above, turns out to be correct). More precisely this is the logical fallacy of
Ad hominem circumstantial and is a weak argument that reflects poorly on those who attempt it.
stop trying to censor my posts by trying to bury them.
Discussion and critical comments is not censoring, nor is it off topic, but what you did by posting
the exact same message again to bump it below other comments is a lot closer.