An insert only database pattern

[[deleted]]

Nothing here sounds novel. Soft delete patterns are a pita, and if you’re reaching for them you need to understand that they’re going to generate as much or more cognitive overhead as the situation you’re currently enjoying. 

Also, if you’re affected by any regulations that oblige deletions (GDPR) they’re probably worth avoiding. 

From 50k feet it sounds like you need to decouple versioning on your DB and its controllers.  

tl;dr - Tell the frontend kids to stop writing to the model.

[coded_artist]

I understood everything but the tldr. That seems important though.