Moderator removed all his posts & threads and from many other users
 

I'd like to know the procedure to get posts back which were physically removed by a moderator.

I do have a mysql backup file. What would be the best way to get the old removed posts back?

Do I run a query to find his old posts in the old database and then just make a dump of those tables? Can I then just add them to the current post database?

Thanks

That would be a good start. I think the thread table contains information about the first and last posts, so any posts that end up being the first or last post probably needs special attention. If there are any attachments they'd need to be handled as well, if you care about those. There maybe be other things as well - hopefully someone else will know more.

A couple years ago we had a moderator remove a bunch of threads and I restored them from a backup by writing a script, but that's a bit different than restoring posts to existing threads.

This is exactly why I only allow moderators to soft delete! you could always use impex to merge the tables.