Ah, I didn't know that it was possible to show deleted posts (its been awhile since I looked at my preferences, I guess). Judging by the grammar, word choice and username I'd suspect that the author is not a native English-speaker.

I agree that in this case it doesn't really add much to the conversation, although I am a bit more forgiving if the author is indeed not a native English speaker.

I'm going to keep showdead on. There have been a number of cases in which I've seen comments moderated to oblivion where, from the quotes in child comments, I think that they were probably worth reading.

(Amusingly, HN has not let me post this for several hours, since I'm 'posting too fast')