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As part of our efforts to help fix closed questions on our site, below are ten Workplace SE questions posted for community review. We'll leave this post open until Sunday, and then we'll handle whatever remains.

Tools at your disposal include editing, voting to delete or voting to reopen, and you may discuss the questions in chat and on meta.

If you wish to start a meta discussion about one of the posts, please use one answer below per question, and then use the comments underneath that answer to discuss that post. This helps keep information about a post in one spot:

  1. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/27998/technical-position-but-questions-about-temperament

  2. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28000/how-to-divide-profits-between-2-partners-one-of-whom-is-lazier

  3. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28045/concerns-about-password-sharing

  4. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28048/how-valuable-is-a-distance-mba-course

  5. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28171/data-scientist-cover-letter

  6. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28183/was-shown-a-salary-of-upper-management-twice-in-a-week-does-that-mean-the-com

  7. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/30438/how-to-deal-with-communication-barriers

  8. What should I do about receiving an unwarranted written warning?

  9. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/30609/how-to-politely-recommend-someone-they-dont-need-to-read-the-details-but-to-sig

  10. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/30606/took-my-work-keys-home-and-they-are-shared-between-workers-why-should-i-call-my

10
  • It's profoundly unhelpful that all 10 of these were deleted. How can any of the rest of us retrospectively know what happened, and whether it was justified? Let alone 'review' anything
    – smci
    Feb 23, 2015 at 5:30
  • 1
    @smci High-rep users can see deleted questions. The deletion process already implies oversight (it takes X votes to delete) and the exposure this gave the questions should have ensured that the deletions were fair. Any that weren't would have been flagged for undeletion or brought up on meta. More power to you if you want to dig through hundreds of deleted questions to make sure users didn't overreach but the SE framework is fairly reliable when it comes to this.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 6, 2016 at 17:17
  • @Lilienthal: for the 95+% of us who are sub-10k-rep, we can neither observe nor participate.
    – smci
    Jan 7, 2016 at 4:25
  • 1
    @smci My point is that you could at the time the review was done. There is really no need to check these deletions after they've been discussed and the necessary votes submitted by high-rep users or admins. This isn't Watergate, it's about the cleanup of low-quality questions that add no value to the site. If such oversight were required, it would be left to long-time (i.e. high-rep) users who have enough experience with the site to accurately determine whether a deletion was unneccesary or not.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 7, 2016 at 9:35
  • 1
    If we follow the reputation model, sub-10K users aren't trusted to cast delete votes, why should they be allowed to see deleted questions then? Arguments can be made that 10K is too high but I assume that this wasn't thought up overnight and the network's been around long enough to establish useful reputation tiers.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 7, 2016 at 9:36
  • @Lilienthal: clearly since I only saw this post 5 months after the review had been performed, that's not useful. As such, this review is only useful to 10k users, and the title could easily mark it as such. I was hoping to learn something but nothing is visible to me.
    – smci
    Jan 8, 2016 at 12:46
  • @smci I'm still not seeing the problem. This is an old thread so of course this review isn't useful to you: it's already over. I don't see a reason why we should update those threads, that's what timestamps are for. If you want to learn or contribute, consider joining the restart. If you're truly desperate, you can try the WayBackMachine to view old versions of deleted questions.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 8, 2016 at 13:13
  • @Lilienthal: I didn't claim it was a "problem" to exclude 95+% of the userbase in discussing reviews. I was unaware we couldn't view the deleted questions; I was trying to understand how reviews work so I could learn from that; I guess the lesson learned is only look at active reviews. It's somewhat wack if deleted questions are still visible to us via WaybackMachine. But anyway, thanks for your link.
    – smci
    Jan 11, 2016 at 21:41
  • Hi @smci, at the time of this review, in 2014 when this post was created, these questions were not deleted. The purpose of the review was to determine what content could be fixed/cleaned up and what content should be removed from the site. This review is now completed. Thus, when this review was active, 100% of users on the site could contribute. Hope this helps clarify.
    – jmort253
    Jan 13, 2016 at 18:29
  • @jmort253: yes, I understood that already. Thanks anyway.
    – smci
    Jan 14, 2016 at 18:34

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

8. What should I do about receiving an unwarranted written warning?

Hi Can you please tell me if you have to be handed a warning letter or can it just be emailed to you, also how do you appeal you're case kind regards

Despite the excellent d♦uble-diam♦nd hold notice (courtesy of pre-mod enderland and Monica Cellio), this question should be deleted as it is not possible to salvage.

  1. There is not much background information about what the letter contains or why it was given
  2. The asker has not been on the site since the original posting to provide any sort of clarification
  3. Any edits would be very speculative due to the lack of background and clarification

We would be better off focusing on a new question if it comes up again.

7
  • Just to clarify one point. If the asker is no longer part of the process, and the question is in danger of being deleted, I see it as more community owned. If someone can edit and make it something that can help all the future visitors, then edit away. This may or may not cover this particular question, as other points may make it unsalvageable, but in general, don't feel you need the asker to play a role if they've disappeared. :) Hope this helps!
    – jmort253
    Aug 27, 2014 at 1:57
  • 1
    @jmort253 Excellent point about community ownership, but I don't think it applies in this specific case because the question lacks so much context and details that the community would effectively be creating a new question, and if we're creating a new question, it might as well be fresh and not have any of the baggage of this one.
    – Matt Giltaji
    Aug 27, 2014 at 2:23
  • That makes sense in this case. Making up too many details could end up making the post feel really awkward, and that's something that's caused problems before.
    – jmort253
    Aug 27, 2014 at 2:29
  • 6
    I agree with Matt. If there's an abandoned question that lacked detail and there are some great answers that assumed certain details, it can make sense to edit those assumptions into the question for the sake of the answers. But if you find you're just making stuff up, well, why not have somebody ask about an actual problem instead?
    – Monica Cellio
    Aug 27, 2014 at 2:31
  • 1
    I agree with Matt and Monica too. I can make up details to kind of salvage the question, based on the assumptions I made in the answer. But deleting the entire thing is probably better.
    – thursdaysgeek
    Aug 27, 2014 at 17:33
  • I did an edit to the question. I did embellish that the OP intended to retire from the company mostly because I wanted to discourage just quit answers. If quitting is the right solution then it should be strongly backed up as to why. I think it would be acceptable now.
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    Aug 28, 2014 at 13:48
  • 2
    Matt, thanks for starting a discussion of this one! The post has now received a pretty major edit and has some reopen votes, so I encourage anybody reading this to take another look. @ReallyTiredOfThisGame, thank you for that above-and-beyond edit!
    – Monica Cellio
    Sep 1, 2014 at 0:27
3

Here are the results of this review:

1 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/27998/technical-position-but-questions-about-temperament

There's the core of some good questions there, but this was closed as too broad and the review did not prompt any further actions from the community. Deleted. I invited the OP to re-ask more-specific questions from this as new questions.

2 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28000/how-to-divide-profits-between-2-partners-one-of-whom-is-lazier

Off-topic, downvoted, no further activity. Deleted.

3 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28045/concerns-about-password-sharing

This was deleted once before, and was undeleted on July 30 to allow the author to rework it. There has been no further activity, so deleted again.

4 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28048/how-valuable-is-a-distance-mba-course

Off-topic, no further activity. Deleted.

5 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28171/data-scientist-cover-letter

Had one non-mod delete vote; no other activity. Deleted.

6 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/28183/was-shown-a-salary-of-upper-management-twice-in-a-week-does-that-mean-the-com

Too broad, no further activity. Deleted.

7 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/30438/how-to-deal-with-communication-barriers

Too broad, no further activity. Deleted. Invited the OP to re-ask specific questions.

8 What should I do about receiving an unwarranted written warning?

As a result of Matt's answer here (thanks!), this got a heroic edit and three reopen votes from the community. Reopened.

9 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/30609/how-to-politely-recommend-someone-they-dont-need-to-read-the-details-but-to-sig

Closed as unclear, OP did not edit and hasn't been back in several weeks, heavily downvoted. Deleted.

10 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/30606/took-my-work-keys-home-and-they-are-shared-between-workers-why-should-i-call-my

Closed as off-topic, OP has visited the site since but hasn't improved the question, no further input from the community, heavily downvoted. Deleted.

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