Is that really the best you can come up with? You just don't get it?? It's probably the most popular and viewed thread on all of bitcointalk and you 'just don't get it'? That's no reason to lock a thread, that's just pathetic.

The reason for all the trolling and accusations (many times by trolls themselves) of "Off-topic", etc, etc is because it is the most popular 'go to' thread for a lot of the traffic coming to this forum. People are getting paid to post/manipulate/disrupt Wall Observer because that is where a majority of readership uses as a 'go to' to gauge market sentiment. It is one of the frontlines in opinion creation and manipulation in the bitcoin space ... how could you not 'get' that? Of course it is going to consume the most moderation resources because that is where the battle is being waged, unsurprisingly on the most viewed thread on the forum.

An attempt to diffuse the trolling, in order to reduce moderator resources, to all corners of the forum is unrealistic as they will appear again around a most viewed speculation thread that concerns market pricing expectations and opinion manipulations of those expectations. In short, it won't work and all you will achieve is to piss off the core of useful posters/readers who use that thread as a go to source of information. In fact, it mostly plays into the trolls hands as they will have successfully disrupted regular activities.

You're going to have to come up with a more intelligent and sophisticated approach than simply locking popular threads that get all the troll attention, that's just silly.