Closing topics to avoid possible slight problems is counterproductive. People are unable to give good argumentation even if they want, because the time they write the message, the topic may be gone.
So, it encourages even milder, more reasonable persons to post short, less polished messages that may spark anger/upsetness, simply because the person was rushed to write it. Then, it gives moderation a reason to close the topic.
When you write 5 or more long messages that you careful reread, and maybe even done research for, and cannot post them because the topic has closed in the meantimes... you have the possibility to either write short, much more useless, much more likely to be misunderstood messages, or completely avoid any topic that is not ultra light.
Or avoid the forum.
I understand the potential legal issues, but there is a difficulty to understand dissonnance between hosting long form comics, often discussing controversial issues at least a few times, and forbidding (or a least strongly restricting) serious, slow, researched discussion about the same issues in the forum.
But, why are we discussing that anyway. The forum is getting phased out.
