Just an update to my old suggestion thread, with a few more items and some since-brainstormed-and-clarified things.
  1. New administrative command, to "Sink" a thread.
    The thread can still be replied to, but any bumps are ignored, and any replies do NOT cause the thread to move up the list and register as 'active'. This allows a sort of mid-way option between locking and doing nothing. It allows the subject to sink into obscurity without cutting off any ongoing discussion.

    Sinking could also act as an alternate behavior for suicide threads which have enough posts and a not-that-low average (per post) AP level. Individual posts may still be immune to antipoints. It may be hard to implement, but some not-that-bad threads have become suicidal due to a single bad post may be able to benefit.
  2. Gold Dots and Trancendental levels.
    After a certain antipoint amount, users can no longer recieve antipoints, and have a gold dot which will pop up something along the lines of: 'USER no longer recieves antipoints." The way I see it, it removes possible motive for abuse (scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine) of antipoints at high levels. Furthermore, it keeps the AP system from becoming an ongoing contest. As for users turning into jackasses once they are antipoint-immune, how about a tradeoff? After a certain AP level, users can choose to take or reject Gold Dot status. If they accept it, they are immune from antipoints, BUT all of their antipoints that they assign are no longer anonymous.

    As of this revision, I'm unsure about how useful a Gold Dot system would be. Has the balancing AP system changed anything? I can't quite remember all of my original thoughts behind this suggestion, but I'd like put it out here anyway.
  3. (Minor) Similar threads submissions
    It would be nice if people were able to submit items to the 'similar thread' list for a thread. I see this as being most useful when it comes to news or help threads. Members could submit a thread or two as 'similar', and subsequent arrivals would be able to quickly see threads which were posted in the past on a similar subject; threads which the automatic system may gloss over.
  4. (Minor) Assign-towards-even option for assigning antipoints
    If you find a post which you think wasn't really good or bad, but you suspect the user was given positive or negative antipoints unfairly, an assign-towards-even option would allow older members to fix the situation without accidentally pushing the balance of antipoints in the other direction. Assign-towards-even would essentially allow a user to give a fractional amount (instead of the whole shebang) of an antipoint assignment, so that they could bring a post back into 'nuetral' status.