# Issue. 'This question appears to be off-topic because it was already asked, and deleted.'

My question If every convergent subsequence converges to $a$, then so does the original bounded sequence (Abbott p 58 q2.5.4 and q2.5.3b) was closed. I tried to better my old question and post it a new, so I don't understand Andres Caicedo's comment overhead? Is this a close reason? And what in the question is off-topic? thanks.

The old question is deleted but it wasn't off-topic. What to do please?

• The old question is not yet closed, it is merely "on hold". Thus the old question is where your improved wording should be put. May 3, 2014 at 14:13
• @GEdgar The old question is not merely "on hold". It was closed, and the software deleted it eventually. The repost is indeed "on hold". May 3, 2014 at 15:27
• The question really does seem to be an exact duplicate of the old one; the only changes have been a couple of word changes, and ordering of the paragraphs (as far as I can see). I think that one should generally avoid asking such a close duplicate of a question that was put on hold as unclear; rather, spend time improving the question.
– user61527
May 3, 2014 at 17:41
• Why not ask this on the "Requests for Reopen Votes" meta page?
– Did
May 4, 2014 at 9:48
• @T.Bongers: Dear T, Can the original question be improved now that it is deleted? I tried to vote to undelete, but was unable to. Regards, May 5, 2014 at 4:07
• @AndresCaicedo: Dear Andres, Is the original lost for all time? (I tried to vote to undelete it, but was unable to.) It seemed reasonable to me --- asking for explanation of a proof in a text. What is the OP supposed to do? Is there some mechanism to undelete the old post so that they can edit it? Regards, May 5, 2014 at 4:10
• @MattE Since it was auto-deleted by the community user, the only way to undelete it is to flag it for a moderator. I don't really agree with the closure reason in this case, since it would be quite difficult for the OP to have the old post reopened, even with a substantial edit; since the new one was virtually identical to the original post, I think it would have been much better to put it on hold as unclear (if it even deserves to be closed).
– user61527
May 5, 2014 at 4:13
• @MattE "Is the original lost for all time?" No idea. The obvious suggestion is asking a moderator (rather than me). May 5, 2014 at 4:38
• @MattE: the original is still viewable by 10K+, and can be undeleted by moderators, so it is not "lost for all time". On the other hand, the community bot doesn't start looking at deleting stuff until some time has passed since the closing of the question. Things would have been easier if the OP decided to revisit his closed post in the (in my opinion) very generous delay that the software offers before it does something drastic. May 5, 2014 at 15:04
• @WillieWong: Dear Willie, I agree with your Things would have been easier ...'' statement. But in light of the current situation, the easiest way to break the Catch-22 seemed to be to reopen the current question. (Which is now done.) Cheers, May 5, 2014 at 15:07
• @Matt: Yes, I am just writing an answer to that respect. May 5, 2014 at 15:07

On the one hand, I would prefer if posters actually show some love to their questions. That means (none of these are specifically directed at the OP per se, but more of general observations) that question askers should, ideally, engage the community when they leave comments asking for clarifications, and be prompt about revising the question when, for whatever reasons, the community decides that it is not up to the usual standards. This in particular means that I would prefer users not to ask a question the day before a planned three-week vacation. I think of this as an issue of being polite: if one wants to ask something of the community, one should expect to be on hand to clarify the request.

On the other hand, now that the situation has already arisen, here are some reasons why it is better to re-open the new version instead of trying to revive the old deleted one.

First and foremost, please remember that the automatically deletion is made by a bot following a very precise set of directions. For closed questions, even if you asked the moderator to undelete the question, we would be fighting against a script that is run weekly. If the OP cannot get the question in good shape to re-open (by that I mean convince five community members to re-open it) within the week, it will go * poof * and be deleted again.

Secondly, in this particular situation, the problem is compounded by the fact that the original deleted question carries also some downvotes. So just re-opening is not enough to guarantee the survival of the question in the next round of clean-ups.

Thirdly, and more generally, I can imagine circumstances where a question asker formulated a poor question at some point in time, and wasn't able to edit it to be better (for whatever reason). But some time later, the same question asker may have figured out how to ask the same question, but better. In view of the two points above, I feel that it is certainly more expedient for the asker to just ask the question anew rather than to engage in a possibly Sisyphean battle against the software.

• The part on the one hand is so very true. I've seen cases where users offered a bounty and went on a vacation, leaving the bounty to be automatically awarded a week later.
– Asaf Karagila Mod
May 5, 2014 at 16:01

Typically, you should not reask a closed question as a new question, but instead should revise the old question and, after is revised, request for it to be reopened (on the meta thread dedicated to this).

However, in this case, the closed question has also been deleted, and seems unable to be reopened by 10K+ voters. Given that, the repost seems reasonable to me (especially since the question itself does seem reasonable, and on topic).

I have posted a request to reopen on the dedicated meta thread (as Did suggested in the comments).