[tgreer]

Well, at the risk of speaking for Dean, his objection was that, sometimes an issue needs a complete airing-out, with the ability for members to respond to each other's posts, clarify misunderstandings, and so forth. A "Town Hall" thread doesn't allow that.

So, an "all Site Feedback threads will be Town Hall threads" policy would stifle things a bit too much. It's fine for the Staff to run their threads that way, as such threads would no doubt be one of the last steps in a thorough decision-making process, to give everyone a final say-so/vote on a policy change.

But many times the START of such a decision-making process is a thread where the members are free to debate an issue in full. Such threads cannot productively be managed in "Town Hall" style.