1) Make it so that posts from lower ranked members don't bump the thread to the top (ideally up to Member)
Could not agree more. Thumbs up!
Other suggestion: In addition...
3)
Maybe up until Junior Member at most. People could be white-listed or purchase a Copper Membership to bypass them also.
Yeah I had the same thought lately.
We can be more flexible by reducing the captcha requirement only for Newbies, if we want.
We already have a restriction for newbies, which is can not posting image not to able to post image. We can easily add the capcha requirement for them as well. Both can be lifted if they buy copper membership.
4) From iasenko:
Self-moderated thread initiative. More work for us, less for the Mods.- On this one, we as a community member take the responsibility to keep the forum clean although this method might easily be used to manipulate a topic the way the OP wants.