Not sure if we are talking about the same one but there was a poster asking if anyone planned on playing WoW, and then started to ask for tips/help on what to look for in FFXIV to make it worth playing.

Technically once that happened ("help me decide why this game is worth playing over that other game") then it is more in line with the forums, but the initial post had nothing to do with FFXIV.. assured deletion. The threads that have lasted so long on the verge of nothing to do with ARR have only lasted so long because of low drama and mostly for good humor, otherwise bang bang banhammered.

Another common thing I see that happens is a thread starts out innocent or a bit heated (but not ban worthy) and then people inside the thread turn it into a subject that is unsalvageable, rather than spending hours trying to keep bits and pieces the whole thing goes. OR related to that they take the thread offline for a bit while they clean it out, and then it comes back up - I've seen that happen quite a few times.

Anyway, not trying to make a judgement call on if this thread is "right" or "wrong", I just wanted to offer some possible things that may have made it appear like wonton deletions (but were not). Maybe if we talked about particular threads that were deleted we could better discuss what happened, although that might lead to us getting in trouble if they were legitimately deleted lol!