What are the best practices for managing thread order and visibility in a PHP forum to ensure fair access to all discussions and prevent manipulation of thread placement?

To ensure fair access to all discussions and prevent manipulation of thread placement in a PHP forum, it is important to implement a system that manages thread order and visibility based on objective criteria such as post date, number of replies, or user engagement. This can be achieved by sorting threads using a combination of these criteria and ensuring that all threads are displayed to users in a consistent and unbiased manner.

// Sample PHP code snippet for managing thread order and visibility in a forum

// Fetch threads from the database sorted by post date
$threads = $db->query("SELECT * FROM threads ORDER BY post_date DESC");

// Display threads to users
foreach ($threads as $thread) {
    if ($thread['visibility'] == 'public') {
        echo '<div class="thread">' . $thread['title'] . '</div>';
    }
}