Now that we have a definitive answer to the closure criteria, and having given everyone a chance to register their opinion, and seeing as most of the replies of late have become rehashes of earlier posts on the thread, might I suggest that it may be time to considering closing out this discussion. 
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Everyone who wants to be "managed" raise their hand!
Censorship of online communities is a hot topic now. Had it not been for this community my Hubitat would have gone in a box in my garage a long time ago. Well, I haven't had it that long but - you know what I mean ... The community worked for me just as it was.
Is it time to fix it?
How many valued contributers have silently left the building? How long will it take for the disgruntled to form their own online group where problems publicly fester instead of getting help from the knowledgeable and supportive community living here now?
I could go on but my point has been made and my coffee cup is empty.
Peace out.
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I'm at the other end of my day, and my glass is empty, so will rectify that shortly.... 
There is a mixture of positive and negative reflections there to unpack, but I'd like to think we are on a similar wavelength when it comes to the success of the Community, along with most of the other respondents to this topic.
Re those who have come and gone in the relatively short history for the HE Community, I expect there are a range of reasons people choose to opt out of their involvement in the Community, whether it be changes in personal circumstance limiting their ability to contribute or a choice of a different platform, or just that their setup now satisfies their needs... I expect the reasons can vary, but not always tied to the way the Community is managed.
Also, rather than citing an admittedly unconfirmed list of people leaving the Community as a reason not to look to improve the current setup is, I feel, missing the point for embarking on change in the first place. If people truly want a productive and engaging Community, then change is inevitable. Rather than rail against a change that diminishes what we love, we should constructively put forward our reasons why we value what we have lost.
I tend to stray into quite wordy responses sometimes, which I think I am now... so might cut it short.... Needless to say, don't see this as some kind of negative change, describe what you have lost that made such a positive impact to your experience and hopefully you will find others here who also share your love of that attribute of the Community, and hopefully see that return.
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That's great to hear, it means that recent efforts will not change the way the community has worked for you 
Just means that you will see even more users coming into the community, or stick around longer.
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I don't think there has been anywhere near the amount of thread closure there would need to be in order to alienate people. Even those of us who prefer no closure are finding it a mild nuisance rather than a threat to free speech! 
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You are in the UK and I am in Texas so between us we probably cover the entire spectrum of opinion on that issue. 
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And here in Aus we can only provide polite diplomatic observations from the side lines, hoping we can have a meaningful impact on the conversation...
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This 
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FWIW, one of the HE staff or a community member with some sort of authority has been getting even more aggressive at closing topics in the last few days. I read the forum once each day, in the morning. Just 15 hours ago, a person posted a question about the best way to address a problem of turning an electric heater on and off based on temperature and another condition. A handful of replies had been made with various approaches. I happen to have addressed this issue very effectively for two years now, and had yet a different, simple approach. But when I went to reply, I got the "THIS TOPIC HAS BEEN SOLVED" warning.
Well, NO, it hadn't been "solved"! Some workable ways to accomplish the OP's goal had been offered, but there were yet other approaches possible. I thought I had a decent one, but because I'm not lurking on the forum all day, ready to pounce with a response, I'm told my opinion doesn't count. I have been a big fan of this forum and often commented on how much I enjoy it, but this overly aggressive obsession with closing topics is getting old, fast. There's just no need for it, and it's creating a much less welcoming, participative environment. Somebody clearly doesn't have enough to do, or needs to go find ways to be more helpful. This "close the topic" obsession isn't it.
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Agreed, aggressive closing of questions does imo not make for the “Vibrant” community Hubitat has built to date, and is very off putting!
Surely if the Hubitat team want to apply a different closure policy to questions, they could make it something sensible like 1 month of inactivity and then auto close the question?
Then at least the question topics can die a natural death without causing the current unease amongst members.
Pretty much anyone can mark a thread solved; doesn't keep you from adding to the discussion, and doesn't close the thread, just let's you know that someone believes that they have an answer...
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Would you care sharing a link to this topic?
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^^^^^ this exactly ...
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I think that @Madcodger is referring to this topic. In this particular case, the person who started the topic marked it as solved.
However, the topic is not closed, and other good solutions have been offered, including one from @kahn-hubitat, after the OP marked it as "solved".
So @Madcodger - if I have the correct topic, please feel free to add to it.
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The person who asked the question marked it solved, not support or another community member.
Last I checked the thread was not closed, so feel free to post whatever you want on it.
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I believe the OP of a thread can mark it as solved, or other users with trust level of “regular” or above. And presumably staff.
As has hopefully been made clear, if one cares to actually read the posts in this thread, solved != closed.
And threads in only one, specific category get automatically closed if marked as solved by support staff.
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Yes, this is understood by most of us.
What many of us are saying is, this doesn't feel like the right approach and has a negative impact on our perception (it's not nice to see a recent thread closed when we would have liked to contribute a different option/pov).
@bobbyD I would like to propose a more friendly Question topic closure policy:
I don't think any category has an automatic closure period shorter than (or even close to) a month. Ask Anything is a manual process, and the issue with letting anything go longer there is that recent posts in this category are shown on the FAQ section on the Support site, and FAQs lens themselves to a single answer. Perhaps that could be explained more clearly when creating or closing posts in that category, though it's certainly hinted at.
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