Deleted, as in link removed and marked dead. This is a link to one of them regarding Adria's firing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416514

A few pages have been deaded. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416422 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416578 as well as the one obviouslygreen posted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416514 This isn't merely pushed off the front page, it's actively declared dead, possibly by automated means.

Perhaps the more accurate way of describing it is marked "[dead]", although some are not showing up that way either it seems even though you can still follow a direct link to them.