What does it mean when it says at the end of a string of comments that "this discussion is closed?"?

It was either sent back to the asker for editing or it ended up getting deleted (sometimes deleted questions can still be found when they’re first deleted (or at least I’ve seen some that said deleted up top)). If you scroll up to the top, it usually says why right above the question. When questions are sent back for editing, we can’t submit any new responses to them until the asker fixes whatever the issue was. Same thing goes for when they’re deleted, but then we can’t ever submit new answers.

It means that the moderators have made it impossible to add any new answers to the thread.

It can be because the thread got too long or became too contentious.

There were only a handful of responses . . . . more detective work needed . . .

Both @Seaofclouds and @marinelife are correct.

(If you want to know about a particular question you can pm one of us and ask. :) )

I answered such a question a couple days ago. Someone posted a poem, asking for thoughts on it, and after some other people and I answered, it was closed. The question was still accessible but ‘closed’.

Is it a rule that stuff like that shouldn’t be posted as a question?

Hi @absalom
A question asking for people to look at their work was likely pulled for self-promotion. Under our current moderation guidelines self- promotion is not allowed. We try to refer users to critique forums.

If a question is in the editing process, or has been removed, it is still accessible and will say “This discussion is closed.” at the bottom. If we’ve manually closed a question because it’s too long or too contentious, it will say “This discussion has been archived.” The former is a relatively new thing.

@augustlan, @Dog: I was wondering, as I hadn’t remembered seeing that message in the past. Thanks for the answers.

It means the discussion was closed.

Is this question closed?

It means that the question is either being edited or it has been removed.