Augusta, please see the edit made to my original post
As to why I chose to lock, rather than delete, that thread has entirely to do with "making a stand".
If that thread is deleted, then it never happened. We learn nothing from it, we go nowhere with it, we are "doomed to repeat it".
That thread exists to show that we wont let abuse, trolling and down right messed up crap like that continue here.
Deletion is always biased, it always hides an opinion, it will always kill debate. freedom of speach, as has been questioned here, is about allowing people the right to know as much as it is the right to say. If we do not know what has come before us, we cannot comment on what is to come ahead of us. Locking and deleting are two completely different beasts - one shuts down speach, debate, thought and knowledge based very much on what the mod team decides is right wrong and immoral. Locking on the other hand, while potentially influenced by the very same bias as deleting, allows for debate to continue in other arenas and extend to other topics, very much as this thread has shown it can.
So, when given the choice between delting a thread and locking it, I will take locking ninety nine times out of ten, specifically because I do not have the right to drive the direction of thought or discussion here through making ideas I do not agree with simply dissapear.