What happens to deleted threads?

[AssertNull]

OK, so there's no problem, just curiosity. Looked at my User Panel and checked on a thread I commented in yesterday and it's gone. The +rep I got in that thread is gone too from my list of commented posts, and I have more up-voted posts in my statistics(63) than I have in the blue thumbs-up icon (60). My theory is that yesterday's thread starter was flagged as a spammer and his post was deleted. Since the starting post was zapped, all the follow-up posts were deleted (i.e. mine) too because what's the point of keeping a thread with an initial spam post and a bunch of posts commenting that the original poster is a spammer?

I'm assuming that's what happened. Just curious. Also, when a post gets deleted, does the rep/votes associated with the deleted post get deleted too? And is it truly deleted or is it still saved in the database somewhere and just invisible? Again, just curious. I worked at a company where there was a subpoena and the lawyers were getting frantic about finding "deleted" posts that they needed in order to prove whatever they were trying to prove. It prompted a fascinating discussion from an IT expert about the definition of "deleted", but that's a thread in itself.

[Dani]

When moderators delete posts, they are not actually removed from the database. In fact, moderators still have access to deleted content. This is important because, every so often, we will have a spammer come back and beg for forgiveness and to be unbanned, and we need to have a complete history of their posts to see whether or not their ban was justified.

Additionally, it's quite often the case that one moderator will delete someone's posts, and they continue posting. A different moderator needs to see the complete picture in order to figure out whether they deserve a slight slap on the wrist or a permaban.

Not having access to the complete picture would make it impossible for a team to effectively moderate.

When posts are deleted, the rep/votes associated with the deleted posts remain, as you suspected. The reason for this is because if a spammer received negative reputation and has a low quality score, and then they subsequently have ther posts deleted, it's important to show that they still deserve that low quality score. Otherwise, spammers would all have a perfect quality score if all trace of every bad post they ever made was always erased.

[AssertNull]

OK, good to know. Thanks.