The Question and Answer Board

[Was (Bob)]

That would present a bit of a technical challenge, and would involve other potential hurdles I haven't really given a lot of thought yet, but strike me at first blush as "bad things". Like the notion of the system itself posting a message (with its date/time stamp, IP info, etc) that isn't a direct result of the author pressing the Submit button from that IP address, at that date/time, etc.

And, as you pointed out, deletions and reinstatements do happen fairly rapidly. Not always, but usually.

I feel certain that all of the potential readers of a post will not have gone past that post by the time it gets restored, as I don't think that of 100 readers of a thread, more than about 10 read new posts every minute, but I'm kind of curious what those stats really are. Perhaps a project for wayyyyy down the road.

We're resourceful people. Perhaps we can come up with something that'll easily ensure that reinstated posts get a chance to be read by people who did already get past them.

How about this one: When I restore a post, that process automatically posts to the thread from an administrative account giving the link or message number. Something like: "Deleted message [number here] has been restored by site administration."