No, I did not alter it. When you click on 'activity' your comments come up, both published and deleted. So I just copy and paste the deleted comment back in the appropriate place in the thread. If I had to type the whole thing out again I wouldn't bother. I reckon that if it was the moderators who had deleted it then they would do so again and if that happened I'd leave it at that.
I only do it with comments that are long and have taken time to form and take care that they are not uncivil. I don't rate other people's comments as uncivil as I don't feel I have the right to be a 'thread policeman'. If someone wants to block a comment then they only remove it from their own vision, censoring a comment by rating it uncivil removes it from everybody's vision which I think is unfair.
I get plenty off knock-backs in everyday life, believe me.