I do have an idea. It requires human intervention but there's no reason the humans have to be official moderators. My idea is to build software support for users (probably a subset of trusted users) to downweight generic subthreads the same way moderators currently do. In the meantime, if anyone notices such a thread they can simulate the same effect by emailing [email protected] about it.

We already have software support for a subset of trusted users to do things like add years to titles. (If anyone wants to be incorporated into that set, you're welcome to email [email protected].) That was an experiment and it's worked out really well. I want to extend it and this is on the list of possible extensions.