Hi Thomas - I've been looking at something similar and Martin D directed me here.. (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=32259)
I was thinking of doing this with an end date as well as a start date. This is more for scheduled news items than anything else but I don't see why it shouldn't work with your idea.
The only thing is - your patch seems to be a on a per-forum basis? I was going to do it on a per-discussion basis. In fact, for what we need I think we really need per-discussion. Imagine something like the news forum on the front page, except admins can schedule announcements - each thread would have this feature.
I also agree there should be a module setting to turn it off altogether.
Edit: wait - I'm confused - does your patch just hide students postings from other students? I want to hide the whole thread from EVERYONE until a certain point - just like a scheduled announcement.
Forum
Function to initially hide others' posts
This discussion has been locked so you can no longer reply to it.