Yes, Dawn, articles that have been published on the site can be deleted but we don't like to delete articles  except in exceptional cases because when an article is deleted it leaves dead links on all the search engines and that's not good for our image. When people click on a link they expect to be taken to a viable page and not to a "Broken Link" message. Articles can be pulled/deleted by the adnin, by an editor, and by the authors themselves once they have achieved a level 5 status.

If there is a particular problem with an article that you have published, we would rather pull it, send it back to you for a rewrite, and then republish it rather then delete it because when we follow the latter route the article goes back in the same place in the article data base and doesn't leave any broken links on any search engines. Deletions leave broken links and reflects negatively on the site and on you the author, rewrites/republishing does not.

 Yes they can, but it is not good for the site or your reputation, you also lose money, so why would you ever delete an article?