Ping users to a thread Mod? - and, "is mod?" forum?

[styleforum]

I thought there was a "modification available?" forum here or on .com... Can't seem to find it now. Anyway, that's my question.

I want a mod that will allow users to ping each other to certain threads they would be interested in. It could use the "Buddy" system in vB so people couldn't ping to annoy others. Ideally, I'd like it where the pinged threads show up in a separate section above any forum-style thread listing such as New Posts (which I primarily use) or the thread listing in a specific forum.

This would help me specifically, to deal with threads that are important for myself and other moderators, so that we see them first thing when we log in. Either mod discussion threads in the private forum, or threads that we are keeping an eye on, etc.

I think users would find it very fun as well and it would encourage people to make friends and keep in touch, although it might also slightly encourage cliquish behavior and certain groups ganging up on someone, but they tend to do that anyway. It would reduce the number of PMs sent saying "check this out".

If I could have it custom made, I'd have it maybe use the DHTML/AJAX system to show a dropdown list of a person's "buddies", or have it in a popup window so the user doesn't have to navigate away from the page.

I'd also add a function to append a quick note to the ping, or even just a dropdown list including options like 'FYI', 'someone asked you a question', 'someone answered your Q', 'you might like this' etc, which then could be used in the display of the pinged threads at the top, maybe in the alt text like the thread previews are now.

It doesn't seem too extensive and I think it would be very useful. Anyone know of something like this?

Thanks.