It's time for a "War on Poverty"

Question

I think we need to do something about Vow of Poverty, overpowered or underpowered. Is it an essentially acceptable question? Yes. Has it attracted some good answers? Absolutely. The problem is that every Tom, Dick, & Fistbeard Beardfist that wanders past feels the need to chip in with their two cents.

Despite being protected it continues to accumulate answers. Excluding system-recommendation questions, very very few questions on this site merit 10 answers, and this one definitely doesn't. One of the old close reasons was something along the lines of "likely to generate excessive discussion"; this question isn't just likely to generate discussion, it has demonstratively done so.

As I see it, we have 3 options:

1. Leave the question open. I'm sure you can all guess how I feel about this one. As I said, though, it is technically a legitimate question.
2. Close the question. The disadvantage of this approach is that even if that's the consensus here, people who aren't aware of whatever gets decided here in meta may notice that it's a legitimate question and re-open it, which brings us right back to where we started.
3. One of our moderators could lock the question. The problem with this approach (unless I'm misinformed, which is certainly possible), is that the question & its answers can no longer receive votes once the question is locked. As I said, the question is (on technical merits) a valid and even good question. Several of the answers are also quite good.

How do people feel about this? I'm sick of seeing that question at the top of the active list every month or two.

Answer 1

I've locked it, because the historical significance lock is correct. Using "on hold" is not the right tool.

I will link back to this meta.

Specifically, the question as phrased is too broad and soliciting argument (as we can see.) If the question was "is the vow of poverty right for this specific group (details, details, details)" that's something that I'd be more inclined to not nuke from orbit.

Answer 2

Option 2: close, but with a comment leading to this discussion.

The page is producing more work than it's worth. Countless man-hours to review and prune, and even more citizen energy being devoted to ultimately-deleted debates when they could be focusing on more positive site activity elsewhere. Regardless of its original intent the thing has turned into troll bait, a black hole of limited site resources.

Close it, and leave a comment linking back to this page discussing the decision. That way anyone who votes to re-open without broaching the subject on meta can be easily led back here by the nose.