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I didn't remember if I had used up all my delete votes today, so I tried to delete one. I was greeted with this:

Deletion dialog box

As you can see, I have -1 (negative one) delete votes left today. How did that happen? I still have between 14k and 15k rep, just like this morning, so my number of delete votes shouldn't have changed.

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    $\begingroup$ Did you self-delete something? $\endgroup$ – quid♦ Jan 29 '15 at 16:59
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    $\begingroup$ Likely reason: the accounting of delete votes is a buggy mess. $\endgroup$ – user147263 Jan 29 '15 at 17:04
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    $\begingroup$ Well, these votes are imaginary. So it's not fully surprising to see negative ones as well. $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Jan 29 '15 at 17:16
  • $\begingroup$ @quid I did, actually. So if I understand correctly I need to use up all my delete votes before deleting my own posts...? $\endgroup$ – Najib Idrissi Jan 29 '15 at 17:35
  • $\begingroup$ For most "effective" usage, yes, at least this is what @Fundamental claims. I never ran into this myself; I merely read on the meta.SE FAQ on deletion (I think) that there was some (there unspecified) inconsistency with respect to self-deletion. $\endgroup$ – quid♦ Jan 29 '15 at 17:39
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For ease of reference, I adapt a part of my answer to meta.SO post Why is deleting own posts consuming delete votes..?

Each 10K users has two kinds of delete votes:

  • all-purpose delete votes (between 5 and 30, the number depends on reputation)
  • self-delete votes (5; these are available under 10K too)

The software uses all-purpose delete votes as long as you have them, even if you are deleting your own post. This means that to avoid wasting the delete votes on self-deletes, one should postpone them until there are no all-purpose votes left for the day.

To calculate the number of remaining delete votes, software subtracts the total number of delete votes cast so far from the number of all-purpose delete votes available. The result may be negative, as you observed.

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Fundamental is correct. This is a display issue as well so the next build will show zero instead of a negative number if you have < 0.

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    $\begingroup$ How about fixing it properly by subtracting the "delete own post" votes from the "delete own posts" count? $\endgroup$ – Lord_Farin Jan 29 '15 at 23:01
  • $\begingroup$ I agree with Lord Farin, and changing the display without changing the actual behavior takes away information that might be useful. But I suppose it might also take away some confusion and cause fewer meta questions about the behavior. $\endgroup$ – Jonas Meyer Jan 30 '15 at 0:15

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