I want to address two ongoing issues being discussed in the thread regarding the closure or deletion of questions.
Why was this deleted? On Nov 15, 14:15, the question was asked. Five to seven minutes later, three answers were given. User Did properly posted not one, but three duplicates with very useful answers thirty minutes after the post was produced. A collection of users closed the post as off-topic. This could have very well been closed as a duplicate, but at this point, this seems irrelevant. The relevant situation is that most users didn't take the time to direct the OP to the relevant useful and already existing threads, and decided to post answers instead. The downvotes (which I do not support) are a reflection of this. The post was deleted since it was of no value (in view of multiple duplicates) and because of the ongoing vote battle, which was simply not going to get us anywhere.
Gerry, in particular, said he'd "...like to see people stop voting down good answers, but it seems that is asking for too much." I agree with you. But this is a consequence of a sillier issue: users are not taking the time, neither when posting, nor when answering, to look up for duplicates and direct the users to such threads.
Why was this closed? The question was off-topic, be it about a sensible topic or not. At any rate, it was properly answered, and accepted. I strongly support the fact the issue was addressed. This already gives the post closure. In a parallel situation, there was an increasing amount of discussion, in particular in other answers, that were derailing into either non-constructive or simply off-topic discussion that was not fit to be done there. As Asaf wrote: "These issues are far far far faaaar too complicated to be discussed in the comments of a meta site about mathematics." The closing vote was made to avoid further discussion in the post, and in particular to avoid further answers that don't really address the question. If one wants to discuss a particular issue that has arisen in a particular post, it seems better to open a thread about it, with the appropriate link. For example, Fred Kline's answer should fit perfectly in a discussion thread titled "What is your personal viewpoint on the actions to be taken when...?". Although the OP did talk about "community", his constant used of the word "protocol" seemed to indicate he was after the "official SE viewpoint" on the matter, which (as the accepted answer supports) seems to be what he was after, after all.