OK let's leave out silent auctions at this stage.
@tajhay how would you feel or would you have capacity to program the thread, each round, to lock at a time known only to you between 5.30pm and 6pm each day. We did something similar in past years when I was the admin where you gave me rights over the thread. Except this time of locking would need to be a mystery to me as well. The goal I am trying to get to is reducing last minute bidding. If people don't know exactly what time the thread will lock they will get their bid in earlier and not try to wait to 5.58pm to gezumpt somebody. I want to if possible think of a way of avoiding or limiting gezumpting and this idea is what we have used in the past successfully.
You would also then need to reopen it an hour later each day?