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Hi @quid. In response to a reader who had trouble deciphering your second (c.), I did a little editing based on what I thought you were trying to say. If I got it wrong, please clarify -- thanks.
To complement François's comment: it also often happens that the question remains unclarified because, to all appearances, the questioner has left the scene. Whether this is because he or she never really was that interested to begin with, or got frightened by all the ensuing commotion, is hard to say. But then the question becomes something of a Rorschach: answerers have to guess about intent and motivation. In such circumstances, maybe CW (Community Stone Soup?) is the way to go, since there seems to be no one "right answer".
I had told Anton a few months back that I'd like to buy him a drink or two should I chance to meet him, but I think he's gotten more such offers than would be good for his mathematics! But indeed, the community is hugely in debt to him.
As a practical matter, the closing of the question certainly makes sense to me: once the answers start either repeating themselves or are becoming lousy, it's probably time to close. I think it's likely that happened here (my +10k x-ray vision shows some lousy deleted answers already). I am less sure about locking and freezing, but it may be there are practical reasons for it that the official message is not fully conveying. David White's answer touched upon some possibilities.
@quid (and others): after talking with some others and thinking about it some more, I have gone ahead and put myself down as a nominee. Thanks once again.
We do in fact have The Masked Avenger who has nominated himself (think I got the gender right) as a candidate. When someone named Carl asked a now-invisible question, said candidate responded (in a somewhat flippant manner), adding something about his professional interests. See mathoverflow.net/election/1#post-143802
@AsafKaragila It's not primarily that. The overriding consideration is that I'm not actually employed as a professional academic mathematician (although I might play one on the internet, and I'm a PhD). I therefore do not consider myself qualified to moderate working professionals, and frankly I consider myself naive about many things which would be absolutely relevant here. Please consider however upvoting my nomination of David Speyer (and I hope he's open to the idea).
