Something I am curious about is why it matters in the first place. What you define as genuine exchanges of ideas weren’t requested by the OP and he also never complained that the content of that thread was against his wishes. Since the content also wasn’t breaking any forum rules, according to those same rules the OP’s preference is what matters. I brought that up a while ago and I never got a justification for why it’s acceptable for the administrator to selectively decide what rule-abiding conversation is and isn’t permissible. Obviously you own the forum so you can do whatever you want, but I think we can all agree that that alone would be an immature and unsatisfying answer.