Lock / unlock their own threads, so that if one gets too out of hand, the original poster of the thread can lock it if he or she decides to do so. I think it would work good as long as people don't abuse it by locking their own threads for no reason. Just something to think about.

Yeah, and people don't have to look at their out-of-control threads if they don't want to.

Besides, it's so dissapointing when you want to post something, but it's locked.