There's [much discussion about deleted questions][1]. One suggestion on how to deal with them is, delete them, but collect them in a separate archive. That seems to be pondered by the SE team, but it is nowhere near implementation yet. [Shog comments here:][2]

>  [...] *Right now*, the archive is SO - locked, annotated and immutable. When there's something better, we'll adjust for that

So how about taking that literally and, for *certain* questions, showing them to everybody as they are shown to 10k+ users? That means, with the "deleted" look, completely locked, but still accessible.

Background: The way 10k+ users see deleted questions is like this:

 ![enter image description here][3]

the entire body has a greyish backdrop, clearly signaling that this question was deleted.

There could be an additional banner on top saying something like,

> This question was deleted for reasons of moderation. We continue to display it here as a courtesy to the community. It is subject to removal at any time; if you feel it is worth preserving, please store it locally for your convenience.


How I think this would do good:

 * It would mellow down the indignation of non-10k+ users interested in the question. Currently, the question is withdrawn from them completely and more or less arbitrarily. I can see how that can be perceived as pretty arrogant and in your face.

 * It would fix the [link rot][4] caused by these deletions. SO could still send a 404 so the questions get withdrawn from the Google Index. 

 * It would still clearly convey the message that the time for this kind of content on SO is over.

Let me be totally clear: **this is not a proposal to make all deleted content accessible to the public. This is about battled, loved, high-traffic, high-vote questions only.** The  measure could be applied to those questions until such time as a decision is reached on an archive solution. 

At the very least, it could be applied as a grace period of 30 or 60 days after deletion for any future deleted questions.

As to which questions to apply it to: I guess the simplest formula would be popularity - a mix of views and upvotes. Also, seeing as we are explicitly encouraged  now to contest deletions on Meta, maybe that would have to be taken into consideration to some extent. I don't know. 

As to the threshold, that's tough to decide and would surely have to be a separate discussion. 

It's far from a long-term solution for anything, but it *could* be a short-term patch to ease the pain of deletions a little. (It can also be a totally dumb idea for some reason I'm not currently seeing, but I guess we'll see!)

  [1]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124439/community-led-deletionism-a-protocol-for-sanity/
  [2]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124439/community-led-deletionism-a-protocol-for-sanity/124444#comment333335_124444
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/hSivd.png
  [4]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/123386/how-to-deal-with-link-rot-caused-by-deletion-of-popular-off-topic-questions