To clarify the UI behaviour I would want: I am not asking for deleted content to become visible to ordinary users.
For an own-content deletion permission, the ideal behaviour would be viewer-sensitive:
- the author can see that their own post has been withdrawn/deleted, perhaps in the usual red deleted-post styling or collapsed state, so they understand what happened and can recover it if recovery is allowed;
- staff/moderators retain whatever audit and moderation visibility is appropriate;
- ordinary users should see no trace of the deleted content at all - no post body, no revision history, and ideally no deleted-post placeholder.
So the distinction I am asking for is author control over their own visible footprint, without giving non-staff users deleted-content visibility or global power over other users’ posts/topics.