Since my forum is very small in both users and content, it makes sense for my forum to archive/prune old discussions after X days...much like in phpBB. I don't really mind if it actually archives the discussions and can still be found in the search (though that would be best), or if it just removes them all together...
Has anyone implemented this into their Vanilla forum? How difficult would this be to make this happen? I imagine it would be a full fledged extension, but I'm not quite sure.
Well, half way there... I'd really like for the discussions to disappear from view as well then, not just sink to the bottom. Since my forum is so small, we really only need 3-4 threads active and listed. We don't have much need for old, inactive discussions.
Those discussions that are closed are disabled in the sense that no one can post in them. The other thing you could do is lessen the number of discussions per page (look in your ssettings), and then the old ones would "disappear" from view quicker.
I don't know of any extension that will allow you to remove a discussion from the discussion list, but still leave it searchable. (Once you hide it, it doesn't exist to your users)
I think you should consider submitting this as an additional add on, one that's tagged with archived or pruning, since I couldn't locate any add on as such via the search. I think many people coming from forums like phpbb would greatly appreciate the modification you've done to the auto-close add on.