Are there any similar precedents in the forum? I didn't quite catch what happened with Lauda, and then some of the tone of the conversation sounds like Vod-OgNasty to me, but has this mass deletion of posts ever happened before?
Some users have deleted a bunch of their own posts. That's fair game I think, whatever the reason, e.g. privacy.
Some users have abused self-mod threads. There is one prolific troll (korner) who's been doing this for years with multiple accounts - creates a click-bait self-mod thread, waits for it to grow to a few pages, then selectively deletes other users' posts and edits his own posts to completely change the narrative. Obviously tons of scammers abuse this feature too.
I don't recall someone just deleting a bunch of self-mod threads completely. I don't know how valuable those threads were, I'm guessing not particularly, but if there was any value in them I'd say LoyceV or someone else could perhaps appeal to admins to have the threads reinstated and locked.
Why would mods just play along with Ratimov instead of banning him for creating this mess is kinda puzzling though.