Wouldn't the best way to stop the harvesters from picking up on threads be the use of a ROBOTS.TXT file? Picked that up from /. and it covers one aspect of getting "picked up" by the bots.

As for a separate Karma forum, I'd be leaning strongly to support the idea of a alternate host site. I too much enjoy the pure refreshment of this forum too much to risk contamination. We certainly don't want to burden our gracious service providers further

Cheers,
- Tim