Mark/Jason, in the past there was some discussion about limiting forum sponsors from uselessly bumping their own threads. Jason mentioned writing code that limited sponsors from bumping their threads within a certain amount of time. What still happens is sponsors posting useless responses that amount to this:
"
"
"Thanks for the orders guys!"
Posts like that are not contributing in any way and are annoying beyond belief. The detailing subforum has turned into nothing but Auto Finesse hawking his goods in every single thread and bumping his own thread non-stop. GOLFRR (who I actually bought my last car from), is one of the worst offenders of this. His responses are nothing more than single emoticons.
Sponsors should be able to get their message across somehow (banner ads, their own threads where they're limited to the amount of posts they make) without clogging up the rest of the forum. Sponsors like eas and IND are great examples of quality sponsor participation. They engage in threads with substantive responses without coming across as self-serving.