16
If the question is on topic and generally fits the site, it should stay.
A question with a trivial answer can always be put on hold. For example:
This describes a problem that can't be reproduced that seemingly went away on its own or was only relevant to a very specific period of time. It's off-topic as it's unlikely to help future readers.
If this ...
15
This question was well written, upvoted, featured, and had 6 upvotes.
Unfortunately the OP made a mistake to admit they are on Mint in a comment, and to add screenshots with a Mint theme.
Does this justify to edit the question for putting "Linux Mint" into the title, and to tag it with mint?
This edit consequently led to downvotes, and close votes.
It ...
14
I think it's good that the system does this, and I don't think it should be more difficult for questions to be deleted automatically.
I think that what happened in Franck Dernoncourt's case is terrible and I really hope that it gets sorted out quickly. But I think that case is exceptional, and should not be considered a flaw in the system, but rather a case ...
14
Why delete? This question looks fine to me, aside from not being about Ubuntu. It could be migrated to Unix & Linux.
(Why doesn't AU have a migration path to U&L anyway? There are many of decent questions about Ubuntu derivatives.)
10
Let's try to be as objective as possible in the ideology of Mint vs. Ubuntu:
You can install cinnamon in 13.10.
The answerer found that it's actually a gsettings syntax error.
The asker agreed and accepted the answer.
He even awarded a bounty.
Despite being off-topic, everything else that the asker and answerer show there is good citizenship and how the ...
9
Do we all like commercials...
Rhetorical maybe - if you took a straw poll, the answer will almost always be no.
We as a community need to understand that at the end-of-the-day, Stack Exchange is a business - not a charity. What Stack Exchange strives for is to spread the knowledge. It does this - by quite a large margin - through web-search results.
Thus to ...
9
Short Answer
In general, it's OK (and sometimes beneficial) for users to delete their own posts and we have this ability, though there are some limitations to self-deletion*. The underlying reason for allowing vote-to-undelete is, as usual, that questions and their answers are not only for the OP but for the entire community of site users / visitors present ...
9
You didn't show your working
Imagine this... Your significant other gets severe abdominal pain. You take them to hospital. Without any discussion, they're immediately whisked away to surgery. No evidence the doctors actually investigated the problem. No explanation of what they think the problem is, or how surgery will fix it. How do you feel? Probably not ...
8
The question was closed due to the original author answered:
At some point in the last week or so, an update for something seems to have fixed this issue.
The close-reason was:
This describes a problem that can't be reproduced, that seemingly went away on its own or was only relevant to a very specific period of time. It's off-topic as it's unlikely to ...
7
When you've been around the site for a while, you'll find that links to questions in Meta tend to garner many more views than normal.
Please do not delete closed questions with many views and many upvotes
When it comes to asking about deleting stuff, it's human nature to say to one's self - "I'm going to exercise my right here" ... even before the ...
7
I have deleted your question. Done.
7
Honestly, we're not that different. I'm a stubborn old goat at times (as you of all people know) but if I see things going this far, I try to step back and listen to what other people are telling me.
In this particular case it might not be a vote against what you're saying but one against how you're saying it. Personally I took particular issue with the ...
6
You could always flag it and let the 10ks and moderators make the call. But you're already weighing up the right questions. Here's the full spectrum:
Could it still be useful to somebody else? If it's really obscure, we could just nuke it.
Could other people declare technical merit? Couldn't they pick your accepted answer by voting for the right answer?
...
5
Improve your question.
That thing is just a bunch of scrambled words impossible to understand. Some hero, read your question and provided an answer. Others found that his heroic act should be recompensed and upvoted the answer. You can't ask someone to delete their answer just because it wasn't helpful to you. You should edit your question and provide the ...
5
From what's been written so far, it looks like the way to delete a merged post is to ask a question on meta, and then a tiny dinosaur mod will kindly delete it for you.
However, for the sake of future readers, what's probably the better way to do this is flag the post for moderator attention by clicking the small flag link under the post, like so...
5
If you look at your activity page: https://askubuntu.com/users/511388/konrad-firm?tab=topactivity there is 1 question listed: On KDE how to change taskbar's font size?
5
I'm not an Ask Ubuntu user, but network-wide policy is that only substantial and re-usable Q&A is on-topic at Stack Exchange.
A question that may be entirely answered by pointing out a typo is trivial and is not useful for others. It should be put on hold, and deleted. I would certainly argue against undeletion.
which made me feel less like a human ...
5
I feel you have accepted @Oli's answer but missed its point. So here's my attempt to point out what's wrong with your answer(s) posted to that question in particular.
A disclaimer first, I was the one to cast the first delete vote on your answer (10k+ users only) which you deleted again after it was undeleted. I admit I overlooked the comment by the ...
4
Questions that are deleted are not visible to most users, but there are some users who can see deleted posts, including:
The original author of the post
Users with 10,000 or more reputation (see the help center's privileges list for 10k rep)
Elected Moderators (like myself)
StackExchange Employees
This has always been the case. Deleted questions are not ...
4
Hmm yes. That question has no particular value to the future visitors. I am deleting it.
4
On Code Golf Stack Exchange there was recently a flood of code-trolling questions, which were mostly awful. While they brought lots of traffic to the website, they were also awful questions (which were off-topic and too broad). Most of the "follow the leader" code-trolling questions were simply deleted, but some (the better ones, like https://codegolf....
4
Were you looking at the recently reviewed?
Review audit passed 54 mins ago:
Adaephon reviewed this 54 mins ago: Reviewed
It was an audit post. They're commonly already nuked.
3
You've done the right thing, asking in here. I have undeleted it.
If it's still a pressing issue, you might want to consider putting a bounty on it.
3
I can't be sure without a link to your deleted question but yes, closed questions are deleted by the system after a while. You can see the details here, but in short:
If the question was closed more than 9 days ago, and ...
not closed as a duplicate
has a score of 0 or less
is not locked
has no answers with a score > 0
has no accepted ...
3
Is it just me, or is this far to heavy handed?
I agree it is too heavy handed. I agree that amending the threshold to -3 would be better.
Some considerations:
downvoters use it to delete questions on purpose
users are not notified when a question is deleted
questions older that 60 days that get deleted cannot even be retrieved by the user unless they have ...
3
I have undeleted the post since it was useful to you. The closure seems correct to me, but both the question, the self-answer and the answer with the workaround seem to at least have information that may help other users.
2
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?".
If it's a really bad question it would be close voted.
If it's a good question it will be voted up.
If it's a question with hardly any views, one down vote, no answers and it gets deleted, does anyone really care? Perhaps the criteria can be amended to include the ...
2
Ask a mod ™
Flag, explain yourself, wait.
2
Unfortunately as the system works you may not be able to delete your question:
How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?
This may be the case here. Also note that a question put "on hold" can only be deleted by the community after a period of 48 hours:
What is a "...
1
You should be able to find your questions (even the deleted ones) through your profile. Deleted questions show up with a slightly red background.
If you have many, there's a "recently deleted" link at the bottom of that list.
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible