I haven't seen the thread, and I don't really need to. I can guess what it's like.

The problem with spam threads is that they're only really funny for the people who post in them. Staff spam is pretty much the same as Psy and Co spam, except maybe the in-jokes are different in each case. As a result, each group finds its own spam hilarious and worthy of archiving, and dislikes any spam from the other group. The staff have more power over the archiving process, hence their threads are more likely to be archived.

What I'm trying to say is that your opinion of these threads is all determined by whether or not you're involved in them. If I were in a different timezone and had been online, I'd probably have played a part in wankers, and I'd campaign to have it archived. As things are, I wasn't involved and I couldn't care less.

There are two solutions to this problem: either archive all threads of this type, or archive none of them. If you think the memories of a few spammers are that important, then their threads should be archived even if the rest of the forum doesn't know what they're talking about. However, if you take the view that archived threads should be something the whole community can enjoy, then leave the 'classic' spam threads alone. After all, people can still enjoy reading them if they want to, it's just a matter of searching the forums or saving the thread to your hard drive. What you shouldn't do is have a double standard, with some of these topics being preserved and others ignored.