aaaaannnnddd this is why I don’t like bikeshed topics 
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Could not agree more.
When I read bikeshed topics where people are debating or discussion items of personal preference or some detailed minutia of low value in the overall scheme of things TODO, where they elevate minutia to such a high level of attention, my unspoken reaction tends to be “apparently these people live in such luxury, they have nothing better to do?”.
There is a lot of important things to do, I would assume, on the discourse TODO list, more important than spending time discussing bikeshed topics back and forth; and so I can imagine if there were venture capitalist angels looking down from financial heaven during bikeshed discussions, they would not be pleased.
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I vote we undo all of this and go back to locked / unlocked… I don’t see a clear win here, just endless arguments and discussion? Based on the discussion here, THERE IS NO PERFECT GLYPH THAT CAN REPRESENT THIS CONCEPT.
I do believe that the “no replies” indicator is more correct because that’s what close actually does @CvX but it seems like a tiny, marginal benefit in the big scheme of things? And even that is not free, because now how do we represent its opposite, replies being turned back on, the door being open to more replies in a topic?
I feel like we can’t actually come up with a glyph that is materially better. Locked and unlocked are at least very clear in what they mean, though there are two aspects at play:
- security “lock”
- no more replies “lock”
I personally don’t have a problem with this representing two aspects of the same “lock” but… some people do. Maybe those people need to run CSS customizations on their site to get the glyph that works better, but I have no idea what that glyph would be…
TL;DR I kinda hate this topic.
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As long as we’re not using the same glyph to signify closed and secure I don’t mind. That’s the problem here, because they mean fundamentally different things.
It wasn’t a problem when categories were a separate column, but now they aren’t and the proximity just adds to the confusion.
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They don’t though. See my reply above.
If we could come up with a glyph that even half the people agreed on, I’d agree with you.
But we can’t, so the data says this isn’t workable.
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Then I guess a bunch of us just go back to removing the padlock on all categories which lack the everyone permission, and continue to occasionally be confused on sites where it’s still present. 
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This is a classic bikeshed topic. I do wish there was a glyph everyone could agree on, but as you can see… we’ve tried about four so far and they all have their own downsides.
Lock and unlock are at least clear conceptually. Lock means locked, and its opposite is also clear and straightforward.
I am personally ambivalent about this perceived difference between
- lock as “security lock”
- lock as “no more replies lock”
I honestly don’t have strong feelings about it either way… if there was a glyph we could all agree on, I’d be fine switching. Based on efforts to date (scroll up and read!) I think we have close to zero consensus on what that’d be or look like.
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Because I hate myself, I am now compelled to propose this glyph for topic closure:
or 
?
Could we use stop and go as metaphors here? And hear me out…
- Close has
- Open is … blank. That’s right, blank. NO GLYPH. When you open a topic, that’s the normal state of affairs so we don’t need a glyph, do we?
Can I get a second opinion on this tomorrow @awesomerobot?
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This is just my extra thoughts on the original concern brought up:
It’s not uncommon for users to tell me that the padlock on categories confuses them.
I know that in Discord, the lock is also used for security permissions (indicating only certain roles can see/post in a particular text channel, or join a particular voice channel)
I’m an admin of a server for my friend (about 1500 members who have joined through).
We’ve ran into just one instance so far where someone invited their sister to join the server, and their sister didn’t realise that she could post in the private channels, saying that she was confused by the locks. But they figured out soon afterwards that she could post.
for me, I usually use context to determine whether I can post in a category or not (On Discourse, I can tell by checking if I can select it in the category dropdown, when creating a new topic. And by checking whether there is the reply button on topics e.g. I cannot reply in topics that are in #releases).
(On discord, it’s done through “this channel is read-only” or “you do not have permission to send messages in this channel”.)
otherwise I don’t really have any major preferences for what is used to indicate security permissions or closed topics. 
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I’m sympathetic, we just need to find a glyph that works. Which is… difficult. Let me hear back from @awesomerobot on the close and blank.
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What about something like top row, far right for private (the key implying it can be accessed if you have permission)
And second row, far left (minus the WiFi signal) for completely locked. No key option on this one.
Could also do a gold color for the private one (gold also implying special access) and normal full gray for completely closed one to add distinction.
Here’s my new proposal. Old on top, bottom new are new behaviors.
This makes sense to me as
-
We avoid having an ‘open’ glyph altogether, open is the natural state of a topic anyway so we don’t need a glyph for that… do we?
-
If you believe in road sign metaphors, a “stop” sign means we have closed the road to traffic, which is a decent analog to the closed topic preventing normal flow of replies like flow of traffic.
Last chance, let’s give this a go.
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I vote to undo all of this, as you said earlier. Nothing beats the solid padlock for clarity at small sizes.
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When a user removes themselves from a PM then it would be be closed? Same glyph but I’m ready to give it a go! 
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A note on bikesheding
There’s a bikeshed topic and there’s a talking through a usability issue.
As a rule of thumb an icon shouldn’t be used for two different things within an app. Especially on the same page, and more so within the same screen, an more so next to each other, and more so in the exactly same color, and more so roughly the same size. And yet:
To me that’s a problem, not a matter of preference.
I like the stop sign idea! Plus, it has the similar visual weight as the lock before, so it makes for a nice replacement. And I’m totally fine with not having any icon for reopening topics – not everything has to have an icon. 
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This is key. The normal state is … normal, go, full speed ahead.
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One more change on the way!
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/040b8c00a4450cfb0ee306f96d18aa34ab15f931
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I don’t normally have such a strong reaction, but after living with this new “do not enter” icon for a few minutes I am feeling quite bad. 
This may be cultural. I do not know.
To me “Do not Enter” means … bad road, do not enter … you are going to run over somebody… do not enter topic.
Where I grew up there was never any text on do not enter signs and this is deeply ingrained in me.
Everyone else use locks here.
XenForo
PHPbb
I feel super strongly we should just go back to lock … if we absolutely must do something here fiddle with this icon:
I get @CvX’s complaint here, and yeah maybe we need a different icon there like a “User” or “Group” icon to denote that only certain users or groups are allowed, but a lock on closed topic should not change.
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I was having a similar thought, Sam… my associations with this are more “do not enter” than stop. I was thinking of an American style stop sign (the red octagon) but couldn’t find that on fontawesome. What about a stop button, like on an old school tape recorder?
https://fontawesome.com/icons/stop-circle
I’m sure this is just how Jeff wanted to start his weekend. More bike shedding!
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Ah sorry I should have been more clearer about my point— even though there was the lock icon on the channels, the user was still able to figure out pretty quickly that should could post
(This is because the input fields are enabled when she can post.) So the confusion was just temporary in that case (with the lock icons being there to indicate that not everyone can see this channel).