Honestly, this seems to be the wrong decision imo. I certainly agree at lot of bad posts are made, but I'd much prefer that the few people that keep whining in threads gets punished instead of the forum. It seems absurd that we for example can't have a friendly thread about the war between france and britain, without seeing the same agitators go in, shit all over the topic and whine about something off-topic and the thread gets locked, but they go unpunished to the next post they don't like and force the mods to close that down too.
Give them a warning, not getting the hint? Fine, a weeks forum ban. Still not getting it? Let's go for a month. Then a year. and then permaban.
I very much approve of some light forum pvp and friendly banter, but locking forum threads and now an entire section of the board because of a few rotten eggs? Sorry to say so, but that just seem like bad decision making.