Forum cleanup without affecting thread/post counts. Is it possible?

[Snowhog]

Our forum has been in place since 2005-07-17, accumulating a huge number of threads and posts. We are a Kubuntu Linux support forum. When a given Kubuntu release reaches End-of-Life, it's forum and sub-forums are closed to further posting but left visible and available for searches, and for indexing by external search engines.

At some point, some of the older closed forums may be removed because of relevance and for general forum housecleaning. My question is, if we opt to remove existing forums, how can we prevent the impact on members thread and post counts? Is it even possible?

[Dave]

So you want to remove the threads and posts but leave the post counts of your members as they are? If you simply remove the threads/posts with SQL queries straight out of the database, it will not have impact on the post count.

Although I believe that if you do it straight in the AdminCP, it should not recount the post counts either.

Just keep in mind that whenever you execute the "Update Post Counts" function in the AdminCP > Maintenance, it will obviously update all the post counts and update it to reflect the actual number of posts users have made.

[ozzy47]

Just archive the threads.

[Snowhog]

Just archive the threads.
Okay, but the only section in the AdminCP containing the word archive is Search Engine Friendly Archive, and the options there don't indicate anything would be archived.

So, if archiving the forums is the way to go, how does one do it?