When a past version is deleted, is that content deleted

[Bill Bailey]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Page History and Page Comparison Views

I know I can delete an older version of a document. When that older version is deleted, does it just delete the view of that version, or does it delete the changes made by that version?

[TomC]

Bill,

You asked whether one can delete an older version of a document, but the reference you included and one of your tags were around page history and page comparison views.  So let's look at both pages and documents/files:

1. If you delete an older version of a page, it deletes the stored copy of that version of the page. 
2. If you delete an older version of a document (file attachment), it deletes the stored copy of that version of the document.

So, the basic result is the same for both 'entities'. Changes are not deleted, there is just no longer access to the stored version of the page or file.

EXAMPLE. Say for a simple-to-convey example you deleted version 1 of either a page or a document/file that had 10 sentences, and one additional sentence was added in both version 2 and version 3.  The remaining version 2 and 3 would have 11 and 12 sentences respectively. If you deleted version 2 instead, then the remaining versions (whether this is a page or a document) would have 10 and 12 sentences respectively. All changes from deleted versions are present in subsequent versions. Make sense?