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No, we shouldn't do this.

Deletion means deletion, and needs to stay. That something was once "on-topic" shouldn't protect it, it's become a broken window.

Most of the cited examples aren't really "on-topic" for that matter, every single example in your screenshot wasn't on-topic back in the day it just wasn't closed/deleted. This was because moderation was still evolving, and so the rules weren't as stringently enforced; they still existed though.

See the very first FAQ on Stack Overflow.

###What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is a place for questions that can be answered!

Also, try to refrain from asking questions about Stack Overflow itself unless you absolutely, positively have to. Most programmers don't come here to learn about the intricacies of Stack Overflow; they come here to get answers to their programming questions. Let's try to help them out by not cluttering up the system with navelgazing meta-discussion.

Most popular programming cartoon, first home computer, programmer's last words, etc. are all at least "subjective" and obviously had "extended discussion".

Restating because it's important, these should have been closed or deleted; that they weren't is a failure of early moderation, not of changing "on-topic"-ness.

We can look to similar sites for opinions on this as well, for instance Wikipedia says:

###Deleted pages should be visible

Proposal: Make deleted pages visible to everybody (or to all logged-in users), not just administrators.

Reasons for previous rejection: That defies the whole point of deletion (which is to improve Wikipedia quality by getting rid of the worst parts); also, it would increase the workload of the Oversight body to ensure that copyviolations and libelous statements are not visible to everybody. This proposal has been explicitly vetoed by the Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel.

I honestly hadn't considered the legal arguments until this was brought up to me, but it is a valid concern. There are lots of instances of SSNs, emails, phone numbers, and so on getting hard deleted via flagging; who knows how many were only soft deleted. Copyright violations and libel are outside my expertise, but presumably do need to be addressed.

To address Shog's proposal in particular (though the above objections apply equally to it):

Direct links to Archived questions will always work, displaying them in the same form that they appear to 10K users right now.

A new search operator - archived:1 - will allow searching Archived questions.

These two bits heavily undermine the usefulness of deletion. It's a pipe dream to expect new users (or even moderately experienced ones) to really grasp the distinctions around archived questions. People still use closed questions to justify asking similarly off-topic ones after all. That the question is visible on a site that is semantically connected to Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange is enough to confuse (or let them willfully delude themselves, as my more cynical side sometime suspects) people.

I'll ignore the technical concerns, though they're non-trivial.

No, we shouldn't do this.

Deletion means deletion, and needs to stay. That something was once "on-topic" shouldn't protect it, it's become a broken window.

Most of the cited examples aren't really "on-topic" for that matter, every single example in your screenshot wasn't on-topic back in the day it just wasn't closed/deleted. This was because moderation was still evolving, and so the rules weren't as stringently enforced; they still existed though.

See the very first FAQ on Stack Overflow.

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is a place for questions that can be answered!

Also, try to refrain from asking questions about Stack Overflow itself unless you absolutely, positively have to. Most programmers don't come here to learn about the intricacies of Stack Overflow; they come here to get answers to their programming questions. Let's try to help them out by not cluttering up the system with navelgazing meta-discussion.

Most popular programming cartoon, first home computer, programmer's last words, etc. are all at least "subjective" and obviously had "extended discussion".

Restating because it's important, these should have been closed or deleted; that they weren't is a failure of early moderation, not of changing "on-topic"-ness.

We can look to similar sites for opinions on this as well, for instance Wikipedia says:

Deleted pages should be visible

Proposal: Make deleted pages visible to everybody (or to all logged-in users), not just administrators.

Reasons for previous rejection: That defies the whole point of deletion (which is to improve Wikipedia quality by getting rid of the worst parts); also, it would increase the workload of the Oversight body to ensure that copyviolations and libelous statements are not visible to everybody. This proposal has been explicitly vetoed by the Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel.

I honestly hadn't considered the legal arguments until this was brought up to me, but it is a valid concern. There are lots of instances of SSNs, emails, phone numbers, and so on getting hard deleted via flagging; who knows how many were only soft deleted. Copyright violations and libel are outside my expertise, but presumably do need to be addressed.

To address Shog's proposal in particular (though the above objections apply equally to it):

Direct links to Archived questions will always work, displaying them in the same form that they appear to 10K users right now.

A new search operator - archived:1 - will allow searching Archived questions.

These two bits heavily undermine the usefulness of deletion. It's a pipe dream to expect new users (or even moderately experienced ones) to really grasp the distinctions around archived questions. People still use closed questions to justify asking similarly off-topic ones after all. That the question is visible on a site that is semantically connected to Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange is enough to confuse (or let them willfully delude themselves, as my more cynical side sometime suspects) people.

I'll ignore the technical concerns, though they're non-trivial.

No, we shouldn't do this.

Deletion means deletion, and needs to stay. That something was once "on-topic" shouldn't protect it, it's become a broken window.

Most of the cited examples aren't really "on-topic" for that matter, every single example in your screenshot wasn't on-topic back in the day it just wasn't closed/deleted. This was because moderation was still evolving, and so the rules weren't as stringently enforced; they still existed though.

See the very first FAQ on Stack Overflow.

###What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is a place for questions that can be answered!

Also, try to refrain from asking questions about Stack Overflow itself unless you absolutely, positively have to. Most programmers don't come here to learn about the intricacies of Stack Overflow; they come here to get answers to their programming questions. Let's try to help them out by not cluttering up the system with navelgazing meta-discussion.

Most popular programming cartoon, first home computer, programmer's last words, etc. are all at least "subjective" and obviously had "extended discussion".

Restating because it's important, these should have been closed or deleted; that they weren't is a failure of early moderation, not of changing "on-topic"-ness.

We can look to similar sites for opinions on this as well, for instance Wikipedia says:

###Deleted pages should be visible

Proposal: Make deleted pages visible to everybody (or to all logged-in users), not just administrators.

Reasons for previous rejection: That defies the whole point of deletion (which is to improve Wikipedia quality by getting rid of the worst parts); also, it would increase the workload of the Oversight body to ensure that copyviolations and libelous statements are not visible to everybody. This proposal has been explicitly vetoed by the Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel.

I honestly hadn't considered the legal arguments until this was brought up to me, but it is a valid concern. There are lots of instances of SSNs, emails, phone numbers, and so on getting hard deleted via flagging; who knows how many were only soft deleted. Copyright violations and libel are outside my expertise, but presumably do need to be addressed.

To address Shog's proposal in particular (though the above objections apply equally to it):

Direct links to Archived questions will always work, displaying them in the same form that they appear to 10K users right now.

A new search operator - archived:1 - will allow searching Archived questions.

These two bits heavily undermine the usefulness of deletion. It's a pipe dream to expect new users (or even moderately experienced ones) to really grasp the distinctions around archived questions. People still use closed questions to justify asking similarly off-topic ones after all. That the question is visible on a site that is semantically connected to Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange is enough to confuse (or let them willfully delude themselves, as my more cynical side sometime suspects) people.

I'll ignore the technical concerns, though they're non-trivial.

No, we shouldn't do this.

Deletion means deletion, and needs to stay. That something was once "on-topic" shouldn't protect it, it's become a broken window.

Most of the cited examples aren't really "on-topic" for that matter, every single example in your screenshot wasn't on-topic back in the day it just wasn't closed/deleted. This was because moderation was still evolving, and so the rules weren't as stringently enforced; they still existed though.

See the very first FAQ on Stack Overflow.

###What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is a place for questions that can be answered!

Also, try to refrain from asking questions about Stack Overflow itself unless you absolutely, positively have to. Most programmers don't come here to learn about the intricacies of Stack Overflow; they come here to get answers to their programming questions. Let's try to help them out by not cluttering up the system with navelgazing meta-discussion.

Most popular programming cartoon, first home computer, programmer's last words, etc. are all at least "subjective" and obviously had "extended discussion".

Restating because it's important, these should have been closed or deleted; that they weren't is a failure of early moderation, not of changing "on-topic"-ness.

We can look to similar sites for opinions on this as well, for instance Wikipedia says:

###Deleted pages should be visible

Proposal: Make deleted pages visible to everybody (or to all logged-in users), not just administrators.

Reasons for previous rejection: That defies the whole point of deletion (which is to improve Wikipedia quality by getting rid of the worst parts); also, it would increase the workload of the Oversight body to ensure that copyviolations and libelous statements are not visible to everybody. This proposal has been explicitly vetoed by the Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel.

I honestly hadn't considered the legal arguments until this was brought up to me, but it is a valid concern. There are lots of instances of SSNs, emails, phone numbers, and so on getting hard deleted via flagging; who knows how many were only soft deleted. Copyright violations and libel are outside my expertise, but presumably do need to be addressed.

To address Shog's proposal in particular (though the above objections apply equally to it):

Direct links to Archived questions will always work, displaying them in the same form that they appear to 10K users right now.

A new search operator - archived:1 - will allow searching Archived questions.

These two bits heavily undermine the usefulness of deletion. It's a pipe dream to expect new users (or even moderately experienced ones) to really grasp the distinctions around archived questions. People still use closed questions to justify asking similarly off-topic ones after all. That the question is visible on a site that is semantically connected to Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange is enough to confuse (or let them willfully delude themselves, as my more cynical side sometime suspects) people.

I'll ignore the technical concerns, though they're non-trivial.

No, we shouldn't do this.

Deletion means deletion, and needs to stay. That something was once "on-topic" shouldn't protect it, it's become a broken window.

Most of the cited examples aren't really "on-topic" for that matter, every single example in your screenshot wasn't on-topic back in the day it just wasn't closed/deleted. This was because moderation was still evolving, and so the rules weren't as stringently enforced; they still existed though.

See the very first FAQ on Stack Overflow.

###What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is a place for questions that can be answered!

Also, try to refrain from asking questions about Stack Overflow itself unless you absolutely, positively have to. Most programmers don't come here to learn about the intricacies of Stack Overflow; they come here to get answers to their programming questions. Let's try to help them out by not cluttering up the system with navelgazing meta-discussion.

Most popular programming cartoon, first home computer, programmer's last words, etc. are all at least "subjective" and obviously had "extended discussion".

Restating because it's important, these should have been closed or deleted; that they weren't is a failure of early moderation, not of changing "on-topic"-ness.

We can look to similar sites for opinions on this as well, for instance Wikipedia says:

###Deleted pages should be visible

Proposal: Make deleted pages visible to everybody (or to all logged-in users), not just administrators.

Reasons for previous rejection: That defies the whole point of deletion (which is to improve Wikipedia quality by getting rid of the worst parts); also, it would increase the workload of the Oversight body to ensure that copyviolations and libelous statements are not visible to everybody. This proposal has been explicitly vetoed by the Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel.

I honestly hadn't considered the legal arguments until this was brought up to me, but it is a valid concern. There are lots of instances of SSNs, emails, phone numbers, and so on getting hard deleted via flagged; who knows how many were only soft deleted. Copyright violations and libel are outside my expertise, but presumably do need to be addressed.

To address Shog's proposal in particular (though the above objections apply equally to it):

Direct links to Archived questions will always work, displaying them in the same form that they appear to 10K users right now.

A new search operator - archived:1 - will allow searching Archived questions.

These two bits heavily undermine the usefulness of deletion. It's a pipe dream to expect new users (or even moderately experienced ones) to really grasp the distinctions around archived questions. People still use closed questions to justify asking similarly off-topic ones after all. That the question is visible on a site that is semantically connected to Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange is enough to confuse (or let them willfully delude themselves, as my more cynical side sometime suspects) people.

I'll ignore the technical concerns, though they're non-trivial.

No, we shouldn't do this.

Deletion means deletion, and needs to stay. That something was once "on-topic" shouldn't protect it, it's become a broken window.

Most of the cited examples aren't really "on-topic" for that matter, every single example in your screenshot wasn't on-topic back in the day it just wasn't closed/deleted. This was because moderation was still evolving, and so the rules weren't as stringently enforced; they still existed though.

See the very first FAQ on Stack Overflow.

###What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is a place for questions that can be answered!

Also, try to refrain from asking questions about Stack Overflow itself unless you absolutely, positively have to. Most programmers don't come here to learn about the intricacies of Stack Overflow; they come here to get answers to their programming questions. Let's try to help them out by not cluttering up the system with navelgazing meta-discussion.

Most popular programming cartoon, first home computer, programmer's last words, etc. are all at least "subjective" and obviously had "extended discussion".

Restating because it's important, these should have been closed or deleted; that they weren't is a failure of early moderation, not of changing "on-topic"-ness.

We can look to similar sites for opinions on this as well, for instance Wikipedia says:

###Deleted pages should be visible

Proposal: Make deleted pages visible to everybody (or to all logged-in users), not just administrators.

Reasons for previous rejection: That defies the whole point of deletion (which is to improve Wikipedia quality by getting rid of the worst parts); also, it would increase the workload of the Oversight body to ensure that copyviolations and libelous statements are not visible to everybody. This proposal has been explicitly vetoed by the Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel.

I honestly hadn't considered the legal arguments until this was brought up to me, but it is a valid concern. There are lots of instances of SSNs, emails, phone numbers, and so on getting hard deleted via flagging; who knows how many were only soft deleted. Copyright violations and libel are outside my expertise, but presumably do need to be addressed.

To address Shog's proposal in particular (though the above objections apply equally to it):

Direct links to Archived questions will always work, displaying them in the same form that they appear to 10K users right now.

A new search operator - archived:1 - will allow searching Archived questions.

These two bits heavily undermine the usefulness of deletion. It's a pipe dream to expect new users (or even moderately experienced ones) to really grasp the distinctions around archived questions. People still use closed questions to justify asking similarly off-topic ones after all. That the question is visible on a site that is semantically connected to Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange is enough to confuse (or let them willfully delude themselves, as my more cynical side sometime suspects) people.

I'll ignore the technical concerns, though they're non-trivial.