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In the active question "Abuse of site with homework assignments ", an answer was posted and very quickly deleted, together with the account of the answer author (user114176), by the Community user.

The answer was on topic, and has score $-2$ with no upvotes. That is not low enough to cause automatic deletions (if those ever happen on answers), and Community deletions based on scores take a longer time than was the case here. The answer does not appear in the timeline of the question, its own timeline is unavailable [edit: by reason of non-existence] and its revision history does not indicate deletion by user votes ( http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/posts/13438/revisions ).

Was this a routine process such as a user-initiated account deletion or IP based sockpuppet detection, or was it something more unusual? Generally, what events can cause an answer to be listed as "deleted by Community"?

Update. To summarize what has been posted,

  • almost certainly a user deletion, those auto-remove negative scored answers

  • up-down vote scores do not remove answers otherwise

  • there is no Low Quality review queue on meta, but on the main site that can be a cause of answer deletions

  • deletions by Community bot cannot be reversed by user votes to undelete

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    $\begingroup$ I was just about to ask this myself. Very unusual. $\endgroup$
    – user7530
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:11
  • $\begingroup$ That is interesting; it doesn't even show up in the list of recently deleted things. $\endgroup$
    – user61527
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:12
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    $\begingroup$ I've gone ahead and undeleted the answer in question. It may not be a popular opinion, but it does address the question posed. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:38

2 Answers 2

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Timeline of events, all of which took place on 2014-04-19 (UTC).

  1. The account user144176 was created between 04:40 and 04:55.
  2. It suggested an edit at 11:59. The edit was approved.
  3. Posted an answer at 12:19
  4. Posted another answer at 13:34
  5. Posted meta-answer at 15:02
  6. Was deleted at 15:20, which is also the time of automatic deletion of the answer.
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  • $\begingroup$ Definitive! Thanks. Accept. $\endgroup$
    – zyx
    Apr 19, 2014 at 17:08
  • $\begingroup$ Tangential remark: account creation time (which I inferred from the creation times of accounts $n\pm 1$) coincides with the timestamp of this meta post whose author followed similar trajectory through the site, including prompt deletion after posting on meta. (I conclude that the deletion was prompt because it must have come before the first downvote on that post.) $\endgroup$
    – user127096
    Apr 19, 2014 at 17:19
  • $\begingroup$ Conjecture: both aforementioned accounts are associated with a user who was suspended for a long period of time and requested deletion of the suspended account. (I am not going to speculate on who that may be.) The SE practice in such cases: "we'll do it [delete the account], but you won't be welcome back for a period of time." Which I take to mean that new accounts may be deleted at sight. $\endgroup$
    – user127096
    Apr 19, 2014 at 17:58
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When an account is deleted, all negatively scored posts are also deleted as part of the script. (There is a more serious destroy option which deletes all associated content, but this is basically only used on spammers and the occasional troll account which posts needlessly offensive material.)

As such deletions are considered moderator deletions (that's why Community has a ♦), regular users (even those with vote to delete/undelete privileges) cannot vote to revive these posts. (Users with ♦s, of course, have this ability.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks. I guess the question, then, is whether this was a voluntary deletion, since it is unusual for a user to post something and very soon after to request termination of account. $\endgroup$
    – zyx
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:25
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    $\begingroup$ Posts deleted by the Community bot are the same as moderater deleted posts, so they cannot by undeleted by users. In my opinion this is a bug, since high rep users should be able to override a bot's decision. $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:25
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, @BillDubuque. I've corrected the inaccuracies in my answer. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:32
  • $\begingroup$ @zyx: And only the user involved would be able to answer your question. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:33
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    $\begingroup$ @BillDubuque Technical point: a bug is an instance where the behavior of a piece of software differs from the design specification. What you're talking about is that in your opinion, this is an undesirable behavior. This difference is important because if you bring this to the attention of the devs with the tag "bug", they'll be confused and probably close the question as status-bydesign. Instead it should be considered a feature-request. $\endgroup$
    – Alex Becker
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:40
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    $\begingroup$ @AlexBecker This is fairly standard lingo, i.e "bug" is highly overloaded by software developers (at least in the circles I was in for a few decades - MIT and related communities). $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Apr 19, 2014 at 16:43
  • $\begingroup$ @Alex e.g. google "conceptual bug", "design bug", etc $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Apr 19, 2014 at 20:43
  • $\begingroup$ @BillDubuque The bug tag wiki states that it is for 'erroneous or unexpected behaviour in the system'. So, though I agree with you that the word can be used in this other sense, I think Alex is right for the purposes of tagging (which, again, is simply towards the interest of the request being seen). $\endgroup$
    – Alexander Gruber Mod
    Apr 19, 2014 at 23:36
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    $\begingroup$ @AlexanderGruber To clarify, when I said it was a bug, I meant that I consider it to be conceptual or design flaw (this is common CS lingo that goes way back). It does not refer to any more specific denotation of "bug" on SE (such as the "bug" tag). $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Apr 20, 2014 at 0:01
  • $\begingroup$ @Bill I see, thanks. $\endgroup$
    – Alexander Gruber Mod
    Apr 20, 2014 at 0:20

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