We have mentioned before that there is a hidden forum to which problematic threads are moved.
That’s just what the software does. We can either delete threads, which still technically remain in their original forum, or move them to a separate forum. Both cannot be seen by regular members but are accessible to mods.
They appear in a different font but disappear from the front page fairly rapidly since they are not being posted to.
It’s a lot, but I think sometimes the Mods actually go back to the banned socks for a catch. It’s kind of sweet, except the jackboots kind of mess up the field sometimes…
The mods like to go into the cornfield every once in a while and make crop circles. They have contests to see who can make the most intricate ones. 
On occasion, they go in there and get frisky. Then, nine months later, a new child of the corn.
Is it a “Children of the Corn” cornfield or a “Field of Dreams” kind of cornfield?
It’s a really nice cornfield.
Tell [del]Anthony[/del]the Moderators I said it’s a really nice cornfield.
Twilight Zone.
It’s a good thing Colibri did.
It’s a Good Life kind of cornfield. Like I said, full of three headed gophers.
The numbers only include spammers, not socks or trolls. The number of “legitimate” posters we ban is around a dozen a year, and doesn’t even come into it compared to the others. The number of spammers I gave is approximate, and is based on the number of posts in our documentation thread. Some posts document more than one spammer, so the actual numbers are significantly larger. Of course, there are fewer actual spammers involved since many come back multiple times.
Marley23 banned at least 8,061 spammers in his 79 months of active moderation, or an average of 102 a month. engineer_comp_geek has banned at least 3,577 in just over 30 months as a mod, or 119 a month. At this rate, he should catch Marley23 in a little over four more years.
Marley23 is also first on the Sockfinder General and Trollkiller lists. Somewhat to my surprise, I find that although samclem is second on the Sockfinder list, I am second as a Trollkiller (although with less than a quarter of Marley’s total.)
It was a short story by Jerome Bixby before it was adapted for television on The Twilight Zone.
Yes, it’s a very good thing Colibri did, isn’t it? Colibri is kind and good, and very wise.
“How many threads in the cornfield?”
With this thread or without it?
Because this one will eventually be added to it. Oh yes, it will happen someday.
It will happen to all of them someday…muahahahahaha.
I would really, really, really like to be able to turn you all into three-headed gophers. 
They all float down there.
Face down.
While I do actually appreciate the knowledge about how spam threads/posts are handled differently, I’m still curious about the OP’s original question. How many threads are in the “cornfield” forum, after all these years? If for some reason you don’t want to share exact numbers, approximate ones would still be interesting.
It would be interesting, for example, if it had more than ATMB or the Thread Games forum (with 14264 and 236, respectively). I assume you can just say “From The Beginning” at the bottom of the page, click Show Threads, and then scroll back to the bottom and read the number–like you can on the other forums.
I must know – how often does someone answer a thread in the “cornfield” section years after the fact? (Zombies in the Cornfield…!!!)
The cornfield currently has 28,943 threads in it. Not all of these are problematic threads that were moved there. The forum is also used to keep track of a lot of stuff.
For comparison, here are the thread counts of other forums:
About This Message Board 13,844
Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports 9,220
General Questions 223,924
Great Debates 41,554
Elections 2,997
Cafe Society 128,831
The Game Room 14,836
Thread Games 229
In My Humble Opinion (IMHO) 104,703
Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS) 135,038
Marketplace 365
The BBQ Pit 38,385
The biggest single category is thread reports, which constitute about 12,000 of those threads. Each report generates a new thread. The vast majority of those reports are of spam, since a single spam post can generate many reports. About another 6,000 are “housekeeping” threads, most of which are also related to spam. Of the remainder, a lot are spam threads that got moved instead of being deleted. So the cornfield is largely made up of spam and spam reports.
So, whenever a user reports a post, the report shows up in the Cornfield? Neat!