More about wild thoughts:
I thought of this quite a while ago (bleh, when I started to come here regularly
) and still think there should be a Relevant Post Repository.
this means: A list with all posts the staff assumes are important enough to be somehow listed and/or stored.
This would have several advantages:
It would (like in this specific case) avoid they are deleted or pruned without the consent of the staff itself (Yes, I'm talking about deny the permission of the thread opener to delete it if it contains at least one of such posts). Prunage, would obviously ignore those threads.
If well applied, it could make something similar to google's sponsorized results: bringing them to the top of the results list when searched by term. In fact, searching would run a subquery among these flagged posts and afterwards the other posts (I recall having asked for this once for sticky threads, some time ago).
It would visually help people to find what they are looking for. I'd put a
as special icon for all the threads containing a Relevant Post and for the posts themselves (no matter if as list entry, completely shown or linked in threaded mode).
It would help helpers to find interesting threads easier and linking them in their posts (eg: the 0x... error posts).
Well, hope that's most of the advantages.
Disadvantages (like "how much work for only one person") have been ignored
Oh, forgot to say that the list should only be modified by admins and mods (maybe elites, too?).