When starting a thread, it represents a fairly common forum practice to edit the initial post in the thread to contain the current status or similar. However, doing so does not bump the thread; thus, to make the thread visible again, the initial poster would have to additionally post a new message to the thread with the same information (or a reference to the newly edited initial post).
Talk thread for discussing this proposal: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=415217