Regarding the "Modeling" question, I need to make it clear that I did not act on my own. There was no unilateral moderator action here, I responded to a pretty clear community response to it. By the time it came to my attention, there were already two votes to close it, a comment stating it was subjective and legal-local (and after reading it, I took this to mean that it brought to the table certain legal issues that differed depending on where potential answerers lived, which in turn could bring up answers that sat on some sketchy legal ground in certain locales). There had been at least one flag for moderator attention stating it was not really a question and subjective, as well as a second flag (I did not read it fully before clicking the first one, however both disappeared when I clicked the first one.) Additionally, its also been flagged as offensive by at least one person, but I did not check offensive/spam flags until recently, so I don't know if there were any others.
My decision to close this thread was based on a lot of community reaction to it. Not everyone on this site has the power to vote to close (you only get that when you hit 250 rep), so I can't say if the flags were from people who would have otherwise chosen to close it...but given the number of individual activities on this thread, there are at least 5, enough for a community vote of closure. I believe I acted in the interests of the community at the time, and I believe it was the correct decision. My own reasons for closing were the high volume of activity regarding it, the fact that it was not worded as a question, and the fact that it was not marked as CW when it clearly should have been, in addition to the other problems that community members had initially brought it to my attention for. I am honestly surprised by the considerable reaction to its closure, especially given that it continued to get down votes after it was closed.
In the long run, if the community wishes to reopen it, they can do so. There are more than enough people with the ability to vote to reopen on this site (some 70 or so). I would gladly reopen it myself, however I would still like to see it cleaned up to be a proper question, with its current contents posted as an answer. That would address most, if not all, of the concerns that were originally brought to my attention via flagging. Any controversial answers can be voted down by those who find them controversial or offensive, leaving the question behind it all (which I think could be useful) alive and kicking.
Sadly, this whole thing turned into a big controversy on the main site, rather than here in meta, like it should have been. (I practically begged Matt to start a thread here about it if he had issues that needed discussing, but he refused, and the issue was splayed out in a forum that wasn't designed for resolving such issues.) As a result, it has become a major point of public controversy, rather than being properly discussed and resolved in a more orderly fashion. I don't really know what to make of the topic now, however it is certainly going to be infamous at best, and likely controversial. At this point, I really don't want to have anything more to do with it. I acted in response to the community, including direct requests for moderator intervention, as well as a flag noting it was offensive. While there are clearly people who wish this topic to be open, there are also people who find it to be offensive, subjective, not properly formulated, posing legal problems, and a prime candidate for community wiki. Not everyone can be satisfied here, so I'm backing off of the issue, and will let the community decide, even if that means the thread ends up being opened and closed multiple times. While I believe I made the correct decision given the initial response to the question, I won't interfere if the community decides to reverse that decision. Its in everyone else's hands now.
