I’m talking out of my ass here, but would it make sense to not count any deletion?
Basically ignore anything that’s deleted, and
count normally all the new replies.
Saying this since really, there’s nothing new for me to read there, and that’s why in on a forum (to read/reply = discuss).
Or maybe that add artificial deleted count could be set to 1 (hard cap), so that I’m notified there’s something changed?