I guess loosing double of nothing means that having an off topic thread locked would mean not loosing any money...

 At least the lack of VG$ incentive might decrease some of the useless threads.

 Unfortunately, I feel it will probably cause some people to try to justify their useless threads under some other forum than off topic.

Its mostly the new members who make these pointless threads as far as I see, perhaps you should not be able to start threads before x number of posts?
I know its been discussed before and many hate the idea, but the amount of threads with either flaming content or bullcrap started by members with 1-50 posts has run rampant lately (December and until now).
The flow of new members has been less than steady, with seemingly half of them never posting or starting accounts just to troll or worse yet; alternates for banned people.
If this rule was enforced and implemented somehow, there'd be no more "(insert mod name or user name) never got laid and is a fag lol" made by banned users who want to muck up the forums.

@DKII I like the first one, but sometimes a thread is derailed and heads into a cesspool of filth without the thread starter being able to stop it, and sometimes (I've done it myself once) the starter asks the mods themselves to lock it because it has gotten out of hand or turned personal.

 The problem with losing more money if your thread is locked could be unfair since threads are sometimes locked because of what the posters are writing, not because of what the thread began as. People get off topic and the discussion goes bad and the OP gets blamed. I don't agree with that.

I think charging the thread starter between 2 and 5 vg$ is the best option. 

People were spamming to increase their post counts long before vg$ existed, and the level of crap here is pretty low anyway. I don't see a problem.

honestly VG$ should be removed or disabled till ioi adds better uses for it

Good ideas all around guys ;) ;) lmao

who cares, it is fake virtual money. pathetic.

why not: for starting the thread you have to pay. for each post in your thread you earn money. this way, successful threads make money while bad topics dont reimburse for the investment.

Then of course we have to implement that a shovelware thread costs less than a AAAA uberthread...

I don't even know where the VG$ are for anyway. But if it's a real bad topic than the topic will drop to the lower regions soon enough.

The problem with the forums is a acute lack of taste on the part of posters. Good meaningful or insightful threads get overlooked, because they require too much effort to respond to. While flame bait threads get lavished with attention. This isn't a problem with new posters. A great many established posters are just not making the effort. Basically laziness is winning out. Even though a great number of posters put forth stupendous effort.

However I see a potentially beneficial use for the virtual currency to encourage better posting. I also think we need a secondary form of communication for the subjects that are not worthy of a forum post, but will also allow for inane banter that posters want to hurl between one another.

First we should have weekly posting contests. The ten best posts of each week should receive a virtual currency reward. This will encourage posters to make fewer better posts in hopes of winning the reward. Rather then making twenty smaller posts to earn ten virtual dollars wouldn't it be better to make one great post and win a hundred dollars?

You could then highlight the best posters on the front page for all to see so they can receive their recognition. This would be a great system to encourage great posting. Make the competition about quality over quantity. Have the prizes in these increments. The first five get big prices while the next five get something which should be more then a slew of bad post would get you.

400,200,100,50,40,20,20,20,20,20

Secondly we could really use a shout box like a small chat room. So posters could duel one another on a more personal level, and posters can ask their simpler questions without wasting forum space.