Literally this has been triggering me forever but now I think I've come up with a viable argument.
One should not be able to request locks on other people's threads.
So I've come up with a list of reasons why this is total bs.
If you're lazy or just illiterate, at least read the bold.
Disrespectful
So I think we can all agree that every staff member has a brain. I think we can all agree that every staff member can use such a brain. I don't think they need people to tell them when to lock a thread. They know the rules front and back, inside and out. if something needs to get shut down, they will shut it down. They don't need a 10 year old telling them what to do. If you think you can do a better job than them, go apply and see where that takes you. Every staff member is qualified and active enough to close down threads that break the rules.
Necroposting
Obviously players outnumber the staff 10000000000 to 1 or something crazy. We'll notice if someone necroposts a thread way before they do. But guess what? Asking for a lock is necroposting too. Want to break the rules just to suck up and pretend to be superior? Go on right ahead. We lock necroposted threads to prevent obsolete threads from moving their way up to the top, some of which aren't even relevant anymore. So just ignore them and keep looking through the relevant ones, and soon enough the old ones will move their way back down the list. Posting on it asking for a lock does nothing but bump it back up to the top, so really you're only boosting it up further. Counterintuitive, right? And if you want to be irritating and PM a staff member to lock a necroposted thread, be their guest.
Discussion Closes
Whether it be you just finishing helping someone by directing them or whatever, or if a question gets answered, then just let it go, and it will die. If a staff finds it's been answered, they can lock it without getting 500 notifications.
Getting off Topic
If a thread starts veering off course, then instead of further diverting the conversation and asking for a lock, be the good citizen to actually contribute to the thread. 90 people asking for locks contributes NOTHING, which is, oh my, against the rules! I surely consider it post farming, as it doesn't add anything to the conversation (so I interpret it).
Arguments
If the situation becomes so toxic that people begin bashing each other instead of the ideas, I'm pretty sure a Moderator/Helper/etc. will notice. Trying to act all mighty and powerful trying to shut down a lock is pretty much minimodding which again, is against the rules. I think that staff have the brains to know when to lock a topic if every comment is just "***** blah blah blah ****"
Now I'm sure the staff could find it helpful, but to the creator of the thread, it can be very disrespectful, especially if they put a lot of thought into their post and it just gets shut down because some kid didn't x, y, or z.
And for a "jack of all trades argument" against every minuscule, different reply,
ALL YOU'RE DOING IS ACCELERATING THE RATE THEY LOCK STUFF. YOU'RE CONTRIBUTING NOTHING.
THIS IS BUILT ON THE BASIS THAT THEY READ EVERY THREAD (so they claim). EVERYTHING THAT NEEDS TO BE LOCKED
WILL
BE
LOCKED.
So now I'll just wait for the snarky reply.
EDIT: Or watch this thread get locked, that would be ironic
lmao