1. Can Huskerboard be held legally responsible when fans speculate about rumors of player injuries?
2. Was not the injury information discussed taken directly from media sources who tweeted and/or published the information?
I personally don't have an answer for the first one, but I suspect it's a no.
For the second, the Fisher injury was reported by the media, but I'm not sure the Blue story ever was. As we've seen, Coach Pelini is not too happy about the media reporting in any case. A separate discussion, but I wouldn't be happy either. I don't think he's in the wrong about this.
If the answer both these questions is no, then there was no reason to lock any threads, and it was simply a case of one sensitive mod exercising his authority to disrupt free speech. If the answer is yes––and I mean pertaining to this exact issue, not some hypothetical second thing––then yeah, good call not letting the board collapse under the weight of legal fees.
As far as I could tell, the Blue story was not broken by the media yet. However, I didn't lock the threads to disrupt free speech. On the one hand, once we hear about this, how can people not be curious and want to discuss the potential injury, its possible effect on the depth, find out more, and so on? On the other hand, the unreported and undisclosed details of a fresh injury occurring at a 'closed' practice is something that is just asking for very tenuously valid bits of information to pop up and spread as rumors. It's one thing when we are talking about a coaching change or a recruit's commitment status, but another, IMO, when we are talking about a player's injury.
So while you could say free speech is exactly what was disrupted, I would counter that with 'even though the news is out there, further speculation on this is something that shouldn't be happening.' We are all curious and I'd love to have that discussion as much as anybody. But the message I wanted to send with the lock was "We should really let Blue alone on this until the team wants to make it public." A thread on "What does our corner situation look like now with Blue out?" would have been fine. But the focus was on Blue and I felt that he could get at least a little time before we let it blow up on the internet.
Maybe it was a pointless use of moderator privileges when a post to that effect would have sufficed, and maybe I could have left the thread open longer to see the direction it was going to take. But I felt like it was a small measure that could be taken to protect the involved parties, at least on this message board. I understand that there are two sides to this. It's not great for us as forum members - since it's basically a countermeasure to the openness and fast availability of information that the internet now affords us. It's saying "that openness is too much, in this case."
I don't think I'm as conservative on this point as knapp or brophog, but if you read brophog's post, he makes a lot of good points. It's the middle ground that's hard to find and I realize you can't really please everyone here. Some people won't mind, some people will be pissed. On the other hand this isn't totally Hollywood and the Huskers aren't just the celebrities we follow in detail and live vicariously through. They're the players and coaches that we root for as well (at least, most of them

). That's all I hope we keep in mind.
However, I don't think I'd lock the next thread if it happens again - I'd give it a chance to not get out of hand. I wouldn't be opposed to a lock either, but that's just me. I think the onus is more on the university to keep the lid on information it doesn't want to get out. Once it's out there, people will discuss it, locked threads or not.
This isn't a black or white ruling, i.e, 'this discussion is just not ok.' And I don't want people to have to be oversensitive when discussing injuries in the future. It's more a gentle reminder that sometimes, the media spotlight is just a little much, and that our desire for immediate access to information may sometime come at the detriment of the players and team we are fans of, even though we certainly never intend it.