Look into different frame slider makers. Some of them make brackets for them so you don't have to cut a hole in your plastic! I highly recommend the Intuitive frame sliders. My entire right side was saved by them.
A steering dampener is like a shock absorber for your steering, just like in 4x4 trucks.
A tank-slapper is when your bike starts to do some really bad head shaking, your wrists start to slap the tank becasue your handlebars are going from all the way left, to all the way right (lock to lock) so fast you can't even control it. Unless you can pull the bike out of it, you are going down. Never had this happen to me, but my boyfriend says he has, and how he gets out of it is to TRY a wheelie (at any speed), even if you can't get a wheelie up, wide open throttle will take the weight off the front, and you can set it down straight. The hard part is knowing what to do when it happens, because you only have a couple seconds. I haven't heard of the 2003 R6 ever doing it.