I imagine that the database and scripts using a deleted flag--rather than actually deleting the information--was a purposeful decision. I think it's a reasonably good idea to keep data around in case an author (or someone posting as the author, not that I expect us to be a large target for hackers) mistakenly or brashly deletes or vandalizes their pages.
David may have had something else in mind, as he added this feature before I programmed the 404 page, but I think the main use for marking a page as deleted is so that the 404 page can inform someone who goes to a deleted page that it used to exist. This makes sense for published pages, particularly those that have been around for a while. For unpublished pages, it seems like it would be fine to just completely delete the Item row.
Also, I'll note that David added this feature back when all pages were .html pages, and one field of the Item table was for the URL. So, keeping the row in the database would tell us that we once had a page at a certain location, and it would not deter anyone from putting a new page there. The issue now is that keeping this row for a deleted member-submitted page can prevent other members from creating a new page with the same name, ID and address.
I don't think it entirely too onerous to require asking an editor to purge the last remnants of a page
But if it is appropriate for an editor to delete an Item row, it could also be appropriate for a script to do it automatically under the right conditions.
I don't think GDPR applies except to the connection between author and content. But also I am not a lawyer.
David may have had something else in mind, as he added this feature before I programmed the 404 page, but I think the main use for marking a page as deleted is so that the 404 page can inform someone who goes to a deleted page that it used to exist. This makes sense for published pages, particularly those that have been around for a while. For unpublished pages, it seems like it would be fine to just completely delete the Item row.
Also, I'll note that David added this feature back when all pages were .html pages, and one field of the Item table was for the URL. So, keeping the row in the database would tell us that we once had a page at a certain location, and it would not deter anyone from putting a new page there. The issue now is that keeping this row for a deleted member-submitted page can prevent other members from creating a new page with the same name, ID and address.
But if it is appropriate for an editor to delete an Item row, it could also be appropriate for a script to do it automatically under the right conditions.
I wasn't even thinking of this as a legal issue.