First, a little bit of history. On 24 April 2013, user @PseudoBadger started a thread to discuss The Archers: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/1740045-Why-is-Lillian-allowing-this-to-happen?pg=1
It gained a life of its own and by August that year it was nearly full, so she started a second one. I notice that one of the early posts there, said “Pseudo - was that your most successful thread ever?” Oh, if only she had known what lay ahead. 
The chain of threads continued, typically taking around a month to fill, although at times of the highest drama threads would move fast, which explains why around 6 years later, we are close to starting thread 100.
Most of those threads were started by Pseudo, although she has since passed the reigns on, and the self-organising collective of regular posters has managed not to drop the baton.
I said above that the rate at which threads filled up fluctuated as posters responded to dramatic events in Ambridge (Kirsty’s scream-wrenching abandonment on her wedding day was an early high point, but I’m sure you all know or can guess what storyline of the past few years sent the rate to stratospheric levels 
). This intrigued me enough to record the start date and number of posts for each thread in a spreadsheet, and so observe how the posting rate moved around.
That means I know that we have made between us over 95,000 posts in our discussion of The Archers. (We tend to move on before reaching the 1,000 limit). In a few months, we will reach 100,000 posts!
The 50,000th post came at an exciting time. It actually happened on 3 April 2016, the night a knife was wielded and blood (and custard) were spilt. We filled a thread in one day! And in the midst of the febrile posting, someone made post 50,000 - delightfully, it was Pseudo herself. 
See here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/2606356-50-ways-to-leave-your-lover-Get-on-the-bus-Gus-give-a-knife-to-your-wife-Rob-How-not-to-write-helpful-storylines-masterclass-from-The-Archers?pg=9 (post made at 22:08).
Around that time, the idea was floated of asking MNHQ for a new smiley that would reflect The Archers. Someone suitably statistically minded 
collected the “votes” for various ideas, and MNHQ joined the discussion: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/2603454-Bunting-the-Bull-An-Eggmobile-Other-Ambridge-crime-scenes-Potential-emoticon
In the end, MNHQ gave us this --> 
[ archers ] I’ve always taken it to represent the community spirit on this thread, much as The Bull is a focus of the community in Ambridge.
So, what should we do to celebrate thread 100 or 100,000 posts? Ask for another smiley? What would it be and what would it mean?
I know some have floated the idea of representing 'BOOP' which is a word users came up with (named after user BitOutOfPractice) to mean something that we wanted to praise about an Archers episode (as a counter to always being critical).
I wonder if we should just ask for a BADGER smiley, to remember our founder? Even just her unerring ability to think up witty thread titles over the years is surely reason enough to honour her. I’m open to what it could represent…