It would be better to use '(closed)'.
When your anti-flamewar code kicks in to slow down posting by preventing replies, the 'reply' link is also replaced with '----'.
It would be better to use '(paused)' or '(wait)' or best of all, something more informative to describe what is going on. Simply not being able to reply to a post and the 'reply' link showing as '----' fails to instruct the user of the reason, so you're wasting a valuable opportunity to teach them something.
You could even replace the 'reply' link with a link to something else (instructions, guidelines, faq, ...) as well has have more descriptive text for the temporary anchor.