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The real duplicate is: How do notifications on deleted posts work?

Say someone joins a site in Stack Exchange and posts an answer. That answer is not good enough, so it gets some comments to finally be deleted by a moderator. The user has not been active on the site during all of this, so no notifications arrived to him before the question got deleted.

After few days, the user enters the site again and his answer is gone. However, is he still able to see the comments that were written to him, as well as to see his initial post and update it? More importantly: does he get the notifications on the comments? (which is something not covered in any of the targeted duplicates).

This is relevant to me since in a site I mod we some times have the case of someone posting an answer that can be a hidden gem, but needs quite a lot of polishing. This is a common case in Spanish Stack Exchange: a very basic answer consisting in a mere translation, that could somehow get improved by the author by adding some references and examples. It is more a comment than an answer, so it does not deserve to be kept there, but if the author dares to do some extra work on it, it will be very useful.
I do want the user to get our feedback in comments, so I wonder if it is lost if the post gets deleted.

It would be also interesting to know if such behaviour is the same for users with reputation 1 (brand new users) and reputation 101 (trusted users in other sites).

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  • 2
    Deletion is generally for posts that can't be salvaged, not as a temporary state to improve posts
    – Cai
    Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 9:31
  • 2
  • Quote from the faq linked in the first comment: Deleted posts that are no more than 60 days old (since the creation date) are listed under "recent deleted questions" or "recent deleted answers". So if the user is aware of this possibility, they might be able to find their deleted content. (Although they would have to actively search for it.)
    – Martin
    Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 12:15
  • 1
    @Martin yes, I am aware of it. However, for a brand new user is quite unlikely that they know how to get there. That's why I rewrote my question to address the key topic (to me): does he still get the notifications about the comments left on the post? Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 16:33
  • 3
    Answer to this question says that: "Only comment notifications to the OP left by the deleting moderator within that last hour will remain in the inbox."
    – Martin
    Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 16:55
  • @Martin this is the exact answer I was looking for. Thanks a lot! Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 17:01
  • And since you mention that you are asking since it is important to you as a moderator, the last part of that answer seems to be relevant, too: "Commenting on a deleted answer would indeed keep the notification, which is reasonable as only moderators can comment on deleted posts and users can see their own deleted posts." (Sorry for double ping, I only notice this additional detail now.)
    – Martin
    Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 17:04
  • @Martin no problem :) This is very interesting. It is a pity though that the notification just lasts for one hour (in Spanish Language we have users entering once in a big while). Regarding the last part, I do not know if it effectively works: I recently wrote a comment in a deleted question in Meta and I did not see any input in the "responses" tag from that user (which is a tag moderators can see in a user profile). Maybe the user did get a notification, this I don't know. Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 17:10
  • @fedorqui I might have misunderstood the answer, but I thought that last part hour meant that notification will be received if the comment was posted less then an hour before the post was delete. It does not matter how soon the user will get to the site to read the notifications. In any case, the answer describes some situations when the notifications should work (assuming it is not outdated). So perhaps you can find some volunteer to test this on the site where you are a moderator (or on the associated meta).
    – Martin
    Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 17:15
  • @Martin Oded just clarified it and it is the way you said! Thanks :) Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 18:51
  • @Shadow would you mind adding How do notifications on deleted posts work? to the list of duplicates? Commented Jun 26, 2018 at 11:38

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