Perhaps a reassuring clue to the intent of the person who posted the thread (and presumably made most of the posts) is that she or he dropped the joke when the thread vanished. If it had been meant harmfully, no doubt the thread would have been restarted from that person's memory of the "jokes" he or she had made.... probably with some nasty escalation as well in reaction to having been thwarted.

Someone has a really good sense of humor, and it's too bad we don't know who did it. The PraiseTheLord one was especially hilarious-- it managed to capture Praise's habit of praying for the Mudcat, if you read it that way.