system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If the comment and all the child comments are deleted, why show a row of [deleted] instead of completely removing it?
gpt
It's to show a comment was there and has been deleted or removed.

If it was removed, moderators can still see the comment so it's not actually been removed. If it's been deleted, it shows that something was there but isn't now.