I think that AW, like many other places, doesn't have a good concept of an object life-cycle: New objects (personas, groups, threads, and - yes - hoods; you will see that they will run into the same problem after a while) are created; the site grows and grows, and in the end most objects are clutter, because people move on, interest moves on, and a new member has problems to find out where the action really is.

I understand the hesitation to delete any of these objects for various good reasons. Still there should be a way to keep the site lean and clean and easy to navigate.

My recommendation: Create a state of "dormancy". A dormant group (or persona, or thread, or hood) would normally be invisible. However, to the creator, or owner, or maybe to someone who explicitly chooses to "view dormant objects", these objects could be visible, and the authorized people could re-activate them again if they so desire.

So if there has been no activity on an object for - let's say a year - then it falls into a "dormant state", until somebody wakes it up again.