Re #2: "marking off-topic" penalizes the subthread so it falls lower on the page. That's the purpose of detaching it as well.
Re #3: we marked that subthread off-topic because a user emailed to complain about it. Didn't see the other ones.
General note: we started doing this as an experiment and it's clear by now that it has improved thread quality, so we're probably going to write code to support it, and let the community mostly manage it, probably by generalizing the flagging mechanism.
Re #3: we marked that subthread off-topic because a user emailed to complain about it. Didn't see the other ones.
General note: we started doing this as an experiment and it's clear by now that it has improved thread quality, so we're probably going to write code to support it, and let the community mostly manage it, probably by generalizing the flagging mechanism.