I tend to clean the Archival section once in a while.
So there is no backup of any kind for topics deleted and cleaned from Archival?
I noticed a lot of topics with Delete title and simple dots (.) topics that are not deleted for years and they stay in Archival.
If I report some topics like that will they be deleted/purged from Archival or not?
Here are few recent examples I found not deleted:
.
Deleted
D
AFAIK any content you edited and previewed should be saved in the aforementioned drafts. As for what I delete from the Archival board, well, it depends on a number of factors - are there any substantial replies (as opposed to something as "move this test to archival", "please delete", "lol", etc) from other users, is the post merited, is it self-moderated (dunno if I seen any in Archival though so not sure if they keep their self-mod status when moved there), etc. Essentially, I tend to delete threads that seem to be testing BBcode / thread designs or contain absolutely no information whatsoever (no content in the OP, no content in the replies and the topic itself doesn't provide any info in it of itself).
While I did say that I "tend to clean the Archival section once in a while", it's usually more of a casual sweep up - look through several pages and delete the more or less obvious test threads, making it easier for anyone who makes new test threads to find theirs as well as for other users to dig through retired threads. The "once in a while" isn't particularly frequent either - from once a year or so to maybe once every few months. It just so hapenned that Casino Critique's thread was posted semi-briefly before I started my occasional sweep.
As for reporting these threads, I wouldn't bother unless it's something that shouldn't belong on the forum in the first place. Maybe if it's a clearly abandoned test thread or a deleted thread that is truly and utterly devoid of any info or data (old, no content, no merit, no self-mod, no other user replies).