No, we rather don't remove - or tinker with - any evidence. The whole process of deleting a post is (slightly) more complex than you may think.
Cees
BTW: Changing the text of a SPAM message would keep a post bumped. If there's no reply yet, that would be unfortunate.
C.
Dave,
Normally we try to let the old thread sink back into oblivion. Unfortunately we cannot squeeze a new post in between (we cannot force a false timestamp) if a reply has already been posted. We could remove the new reply as well, of course, but often that's felt as being unnecessarily...
OK.
Now this thread is on top anyway:
The person removing the SPAM was me.
I may no longer be moderating the forum as frantically as I used to, but while making a few of my usual rounds I came on this one.
I really, really hate SPAM and anything like it.
There you have it.
:D
Cees