Polaris,

From my experience here, even when a thread is closed, another thread is normally started to "respond" to something in the originial thread. Plus, reading something that is intended only to "pot stirring" has the same effect as just viewing the thread, weather a response option is available or not.

As the system gets better refined, etc. not all threads will be removed, just the posts that require such action. But, there will still be times, at the discretion of the Administration, that threads will be entirely removed, as was this case.