I spent an hour after sweetsh told me about this problem yesterday, but I couldn't find anything about the thread, simply error logs telling me that the thread had disappeared.
To me, this means that the thread wasn't deleted by Mods or Admins. At least I hope this is the case. I tried to find a way of replacing the thread but it was to no avail and I'm glad that astar has managed to get backups to reinstate the thread.