No Threads in this forum

I would like this as well. I would actually like the option to completely remove the ability to make threads in the root forum because the moderators on a site I'm making won't stop posting in the root forum. ;)

Largely untested, apply this patch only on non-productive systems.
You will need to alter your Database structure for this one to work.

This is what happens:
All Forums get a new attribute 'Silenced'. A silenced forum does not show the 'No Threads' message and also doesn't allow posting new threads. You can set this flag using the regular administrative options for your forums just below the 'Locked' Checkbox.

You need to add a new column to the table containing your UIEForum definitions. Here is the SQL-Syntax you need to run on your DB-Server.
You will need to change the 'fixme_F_Forums' part. If your Drupal installation uses a table-prefix like 'Drupal' the tablename would be 'Drupal_F_Forums', 'F_Forums' if you're not using any. Enter the correct tablename here or the change cannot work.

ALTER TABLE `fixme_F_Forums` ADD `Silenced` ENUM( '0', '1' ) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' AFTER `Locked` ;

Feedback is welcome :)

I think you're misinterpreting the question (or the question is poorly formed) :)

Essentially what this person wants, is a container. There was talk about this before, and a container is basically a forum that behaves slightly different.
A container can have sub-forums;
A container cannot have posts directly associated to it;
A container is displayed slightly differently to a normal forum.

So instead of a forum being "silenced" as you put it, its actually becoming a container.

I believe these are two requests:
1. Categories (again :) ) for Forums.
2. Stop the 'No Threads' from being displayed.

I tried to create a mix of these requests. I am using this patch together with the Subforums-On-Rootpage-patch which allows for different styling of the 'Category'-forums so essentially I have categories for my forums and I can switch off the 'No Threads' warning now.

Now that I think about it a pure Container-Solution would most likely be better and easier to understand for most people.

I had considered adding a container flag to the F_Forums table, but it never actually happened.

Is there anything about this being fixed? It is rather annoying seeing that when you've locked a forum.

We're getting ready to implement a forum on our site and this looks like a great candidate. Like many of the other posters, we want to use the top level forum strictly as a container. That message about "No Threads in this forum. Posting not allowed" might actually confuse unsophisticated users who may not realize that everything will be ok if they actually go into one of the forums on the page.

Right, I've added 2 new settings in the admin configuration page:
Display message when in a locked forum (Display message telling users that posting is disabled in a locked forum. (default: true))
Allow admins/mods to create threads in locked forums (default: true)

And it clears up this little issue nicely :)