my %thread = (
    title => 'Using functional abstraction in Perl',
    participants => [
        {
           nickname => 'revdiablo',
           status   => 'replying',
           replies  => 3,
        },
        {
           nickname => 'spurperl',
           status   => 'unknown',
           replies  => 4,
        },
        ...
    ],
);

do_something(with => %thread);