This has probably been discussed before, but to be honest my connection is too slow right now to search for it.
Anyway, this is pretty much what the topic title says. Automatically forbid any item that drops when a goblin, dwarf, or whatever is killed. This would stop the massive waves of suicidal dwarves trying to pick up fallen equipment in the middle of a siege. If the player wants the items later, they can reclaim them either individually or from the stocks menu. A little extra work for loads less hassle.
[E]: Zombie came up with an excellent orders menu layout, here:
(o)rders
(A)utomatic dump/forbid
(F)orbid
(c)ritter corpses and loot
(d)warf corpses and loot
I took out auto-dumping of items because I realized it doesn't really solve the issue, just creates a different, identical one (instead of loads of haulers going out to collect the items you have loads of haulers going out to dump the items). The stone dumping is a good idea, but it's not what we're trying to solve. Sorry.
The idea behind the toggles on the orders menu is that you could turn these options on during a siege or when you get ambushed, so that the gobbo corpses and anything they drop are ignored. Then, once the battle is over, you flip the option off (which wouldn't reclaim already forbidden items, just stop new corpse drops from being forbidden) and reclaim whatever you think you need.
Discuss, agree, disagree, insult my parentage, etc.