I wish there was a way threads would lock automatically if a certain amount of time passed since the last post.

Maybe automatically lock all threads after 30 or 60 days with no new posts?

Today, 07/04/2005, a post from January/February 2004 was replied to. After seventeen months of silence, I don't see how there is anything worthwhile that can be added. In this specific case it just restarted an argument that had already generated 8 pages of posts between a handful of posters.