I was hoping someone else would chime in but it's been some time. I'm assuming you're not that keen on doing it since having them uses resources, so here's my thoughts on minimizing archives: I think
Nightlife Raviews, Let's Get Together & Real World Ideas, should definitively be restored, perhaps in a new locked forum section, then I think the most interesting threads would be the ones that most users participated in, maybe the top 100 or top 50 with most participants.

Copilot gave me this, I don't know if it's any good:
[quote=Copilot]
-- Step 1: Exclude threads from specified forums
WITH filtered_threads AS (
SELECT thread_id
FROM threads
WHERE forum_id NOT IN (
SELECT forum_id
FROM forums
WHERE name IN ('Nightlife Reviews', 'Let\'s Get Together & Real World Ideas', 'Drug Prevention', 'Music Production & Technology', 'News Postings & Articles')
)
),
-- Step 2: Count unique user IDs per thread from posts within the threads and store it in a temporary table
thread_user_count AS (
SELECT p.thread_id, COUNT(DISTINCT [ p.us ] AS unique_user_count
FROM posts p
JOIN filtered_threads ft ON p.thread_id = ft.thread_id
GROUP BY p.thread_id
)
-- Step 3: Select the top 100 threads with the most unique user IDs
SELECT thread_id, unique_user_count
FROM thread_user_count
ORDER BY unique_user_count DESC
LIMIT 100;

 

-- Step 1: Exclude threads from specified forums

WITH filtered_threads AS (

    SELECT thread_id

    FROM threads

    WHERE forum_id NOT IN (

        SELECT forum_id

        FROM forums

        WHERE name IN ('Nightlife Reviews', 'Let\'s Get Together & Real World Ideas', 'Drug Prevention', 'Music Production & Technology', 'News Postings & Articles')

    )

),

-- Step 2: Count unique user IDs per thread from posts within the threads and store it in a temporary table

thread_user_count AS (

    SELECT p.thread_id, COUNT(DISTINCT p.user_id) AS unique_user_count

    FROM posts p

    JOIN filtered_threads ft ON p.thread_id = ft.thread_id

    GROUP BY p.thread_id

)

-- Step 3: Select the top 100 threads with the most unique user IDs

SELECT thread_id, unique_user_count

FROM thread_user_count

ORDER BY unique_user_count DESC

LIMIT 100;

s/'Let\'s Get Together & Real World Ideas'/'Let\'s Get Together'/

So

is all that's left beside images?