What does deletion mean for a post?
Posts are not physically deleted (wiped from the system), they’re just hidden (aka soft delete). This means they won’t appear in search results or data dumps, and normal users following links to them will see a 404 (not found) page. Moderators can see all deleted posts and are able to undelete them. Normal users with a reputation >= 10K can see deleted posts, and also vote to undelete deleted questions (it takes 3 votes to undelete), however they cannot undelete deleted answers. Deleted answers can be viewed, edited, and undeleted by their original authors, however deleted questions cannot be seen by their authors (unless they have a reputation >= 10K or happen to be moderators).
