I've been recently looking for some specific old threads (mine and others), but they are either deleted or unavailable. When I click on one of these old threads, I get

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I belive they were deleted after Justin Updaterd the board. I dont belive there is anyway to retreve them, sorry
~wormtongue

If the threads are completely gone, shouldn't I have seen

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No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

?

Also, is there any way that threads can be reviewed by topic rather than "latest post" prior to deletion?

Google still turns up search results from threads that are gone.... I'm not sure what this means. When a thread is "deleted", is it just "rendered inaccessible" instead?

When a thread is deleted its like removing a website off the web. You can't access it anymore and there is no way for someone to get to it. Google will find it because it is stored in its memory.

Ah....
So the threads exist for archival purposes, but are removed from the internet...? That e xp lains why I get the "no permission" page instead of the "what thread?" page.
And then I guess Google retains its old search results (so it doesn't have as much work to do).

I don't know for certain, but when a web spider comes around again and finds the missing link, it may get rid of it from the server, but there is a good chance that you will always see that message everytime you look it up.

It's best to look the thread up on the forums... as it will be more accurate.

Is there a way we can evaluate threads before deleting them? I remember some really good ones that disappeared because no-one had posted in them for a long time.

It was never up to my decision to delete threads. I would prefer that they stayed... I know I have written some threads that are now completely gone and had spent a lot of time answering questions that surface up every day.

I will do my best to make sure that it does not happen again.