The question at https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/184198 showed as a "Hot Network Question" and I was following it when it was suddenly deleted. Is there a way to understand why a popular question would be deleted? Can the OP delete it after there's significant activity?
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1That comment was removed for "reasons of moderation," not because the user deleted it.– zmikeApr 15, 2022 at 21:52
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best way is to ask in chat or meta (like you did). Per my observations such deletions typically happen to troll questions, like in cases discussed in other meta posts, eg here, here, here, here– gnatApr 15, 2022 at 22:19
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@zmike - I'm not asking about the deletion of a comment, but the deletion of a question with many votes, many answers, all of which had many comments.– Don BransonApr 15, 2022 at 22:49
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1@DonBranson sorry, that should say question and not comment.– zmikeApr 16, 2022 at 1:03
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In case you are not aware, users with >10k cannot see deleted posts.– Mari-Lou AApr 16, 2022 at 3:58
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2 Answers
Is there a way to understand why a popular question would be deleted?
Yes, you can ask about it on meta as you have done. :)
Can the OP delete it after there's significant activity?
No. The OP can only delete their question as long as there are no upvoted answer(s).
I'm not asking about the deletion of a comment, but the deletion of a question with many votes, many answers, all of which had many comments.
Based on our assessment of this post and several flags by members of the community the question was removed for having been posted in bad faith. (A "troll" question as mentioned in gnat's comment.) The many votes, answers and comments are not a good thing in this case but the result of a fabricated question designed to spark this kind of reaction.
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2@DonBranson It's definitely a hard thing to spot sometimes, particularly for those who lack some of the tools we have as mods. Generally the question being fake alone isn't enough to delete it. It becomes a problem when a question is so far out there that answers would be so specific to the fantastical scenario in question that they'd be useless to others. Those are the types of questions we typically delete because in effect everyone is just wasting their time answering them in good faith. Which is precisely what troll questions are after of course.– Lilienthal ModApr 16, 2022 at 21:00
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It's even harder to spot for those of us who've worked in such places - or worse. Apr 16, 2022 at 21:31
The deletion reason says:
"It was flagged as spam or offensive content and deleted 14 hours ago by CommunityBot."
Only folks with sufficient reputation points can see this reason. So the process for you is to either gain the necessary points, or ask here.
