I don't know of any way to tell whether a thread is active either. I bookmark the ones I want to check every week, and use the search by poster to find crevo threads. A search for PatrickHenry or gore3000 will usually yield results.
Bump lists are nice too because they can be used not only to bump people directly to the thread, but to send a "broadcast" Freepmail to all the members.
It might be a good idea to have a science topic if we can list articles in more than one topic at a time. Science stuff tends to hit everything: current events, religion, smokey backroom confrontations.
Any software enhancement recommendations would need to be addressed to John Robinson.
Yes, but the quality varies, if y'know what I mean.
[Massive 5-year hugs & smooches!!]