Why was my question about Ubuntu desktop shortcuts deleted?

Question

I want to know why my question about Ubuntu desktop shortcuts was deleted. I don't see how it can not be an appropriate topic for Ask Ubuntu. And if Ask Ubuntu is not the right place to ask questions about Ubuntu program shortcuts, can someone please tell me where I can ask such a question ?

Answer 1

As mentioned in the comments, it sounds like you are referring to your question ...

What do I need to change to get my program icon image to appear in my deasktop shortcut?.

If so, then it has never been deleted, or even closed. You can check the post timeline for details on every action that has occurred on your post.

Finding your posts

You should be able to easily find all of your non-deleted questions and answers in your profile.

You can click on your avatar icon in the header (on the main site) to get to your profile from almost any page on the site. However, if you click on your profile here on Meta, you'll need to switch to the Main site by using the Profiles drop-down.

Finding your deleted posts

The normal list of your questions and answers does not show those that have been deleted. If the question I mentioned above is not the one you are referring to, then please update your Meta post here with a link to the question that was deleted.

You can find your posts which have been deleted in your profile as well. You'll need to select All questions (or answers). At the bottom of that list will be an option to view Deleted questions (or answers).

You can share a link to the post of yours that has been deleted, but note that only users here with more than 10k reputation will be able to actually see it.

Deletion process for questions

Questions here on Ask Ubuntu are almost never immediately deleted unless they contain offensive material or spam. Normally, a question from a new user will go into a queue where experienced community members will be asked to review it. If 5 users here believe that something in the question is not appropriate for the site, then it will be closed. A sole, elected moderator can also make that decision.

However, if the question is closed, it will still be visible to all users; it just won't be able to accept answers until the post is edited to remove the issue(s).

Only after a question has been closed for a span of 9 days does it become a candidate for automatic deletion.

Your question

However, I also agree with @ArturMeinild that your question needs improvement. Trust me, I suffer from a need to overexplain as well (which should be obvious from this answer), but see if you can organize your thoughts better to focus on the main question. Posts that ask too many questions are often closed as needing to "Focus on one question only". When you ask too many questions in one post, it's difficult to get a single answer that should be accepted as correct.

It appears you have the following questions:

• How to make an icon image appear in the shortcut?
• Can you get the shortcut into the favorites bar?
• If the option "show in files" makes it also appear in “Show Applications” (a 3 x 3 pattern of dots) at the bottom of the favorites bar or moves it there?
• If you can get your shortcut into the favorites bar, or into Show Applications, can you then remove the original from the desktop without making the copy fail?

That's just too much for a single post. I know they are highly related, but focus on one at a time, or break them into separate questions.

Also, see if you can make it more concise. Some examples of things to remove:

• It's not important that you used gedit to edit a text file. Just list the filename and the contents.

• It's not important that you did certain things on January 7th and another on January 8th. Just list the things you tried in the order you tried them.

• You spend a lot of time at the beginning in what seems to reach the conclusion that you have simply ... "created a desktop shortcut for applications you have created in Delphi. [You] followed the information in this AU question to do so." You could probably replace most of the first paragraph with just two sentences.

While we definitely want you to be as detailed as possible, there's just a lot of information in there that isn't going to help anyone answer your question.

Somewhat, but barely related: Deletion of Answers

Note that the above process does not apply to answers. A lot of new users mistakenly ask a follow-up question as an "answer" to a question. When this happens, the answer is usually flagged as "Not an answer" and deleted fairly rapidly by a site-Moderator.

If there's a chance that you did this, check your Deleted answers to find it.