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I have recently noted that one of my old questions on meta.MSE has been deleted by the community moderator. I guess, the auto-deletion script deletes posts on meta sites too. Initially I felt that it is not good because meta is different from main site. But now my opinion has changed. I think that questions on meta should be deleted automatically, so as to clean the city.

What is your opinion in this regard? Should questions, on meta be deleted by the automatic-deletion-script or should it be decide by privileged users?

Please note that I am in no way proposing to change any policy. I just want to know what other users think about it.

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    $\begingroup$ Only questions with negative score and no answers are deleted, and after 30 days (first case of the question you linked). I'm generally opposed to deleting/closing meta questions, but these are stringent requirements. $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Feb 18 '15 at 10:19
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    $\begingroup$ While I agree with Najib that requirements for being deleted are rather stringent, I am slightly inclined to agree with the OP. From my experience perusing meta, most of the discussion happens to be in the comments, rather than necessarily through answers. Also, negative score in meta is generally an indication that the community disagrees with the post, rather than that it is necessarily a bad question (which, of course it could be). Deleting ignored/disagreed with viewpoints seems rather counter-productive to me. However, because there should still be some automated system... $\endgroup$
    – Hayden
    Feb 18 '15 at 13:34
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    $\begingroup$ ...by which questions that are bad and haven't received enough attention are deleted, I don't know if stopping such questions from being deleted is ultimately a better option. Maybe including something like the number of comments left would be useful in this regard, since it would form a measure of how much discussion had been had on the topic. $\endgroup$
    – Hayden
    Feb 18 '15 at 13:35
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    $\begingroup$ @Hayden In my opinion if an on-topic question on meta is bad then it should be deleted by 10k users or moderators only, not by the community-bot. Just like answers on main site are not deleted by community-bot rather are placed in the low-quality queue where human users determine whether the answer should be deleted or not. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Feb 18 '15 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ The problem is there is no precise definition of what is on-topic. $\endgroup$
    – Joel Reyes Noche
    Feb 18 '15 at 13:50
  • $\begingroup$ @JoelReyesNoche I guess a question which is not in on-hold/closed state is an on-topic question. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Feb 18 '15 at 13:52
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    $\begingroup$ Another thing to consider, this scenario happened a grand total of once since January 20 (10k users can check it here). $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Feb 18 '15 at 16:20
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    $\begingroup$ I thought that the 30-day auto-delete required scores less than zero; my guess is that a downvote was removed somehow after deletion, e.g. through account deletion of a downvoter. $\endgroup$
    – Jonas Meyer
    Feb 18 '15 at 18:18
  • $\begingroup$ I believe that a question with zero net votes and no answers gets auto-deleted at a one-year anniversary. In any case I had this experience at non-meta (for a question that earned me the Tumbleweed Badge!). $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Feb 18 '15 at 19:30
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    $\begingroup$ @hardmath This isn't what happened here. Question asked May 17, deleted June 21. $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Feb 18 '15 at 19:48
  • $\begingroup$ @NajibIdrissi: I get that. I'm just trying to describe the difference in auto-delete for zero score and negative score Qs, for the sake of completeness. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Feb 18 '15 at 20:02
  • $\begingroup$ Please delete this question now. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Feb 18 '15 at 20:05
  • $\begingroup$ @user31782: Thanks for raising this question, something I'd never thought about. Other users may have the same question in the future, and it would be helpful to have the discussion preserved I think. However if you wish, you can flag the Question for moderator attention, asking that it be deleted. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Feb 18 '15 at 20:18
  • $\begingroup$ @hardmath The net score is negative $\implies$ majority thinks that the question is not useful. Let it delete like others which are deleted by the comm bot. I've raised th flag for more than 2 hours. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Feb 18 '15 at 20:28
  • $\begingroup$ On meta sites the meaning of down votes for Questions and Answers is not the same as on the parent sites. Down votes here may well indicate disagreement with a position or proposal, obviating the need for yes/no polling. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Feb 18 '15 at 21:26
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The poll is without consequences; to convince SE to make a change one needs a good argument, not a collection of anonymous votes.

Also, such a feature request was already made last year: Turn off the roomba for child meta sites. It has . Shog9's answer summarizes the situation nicely:

There are a seemingly-endless number of bad ideas; we don't really need to archive them.

Of course... If someone writes up a really good explanation for why an idea is bad, that can be worth keeping around.

So if you see a meta question you don't want lost, write a good answer to it.

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    $\begingroup$ Well, your idea was incorrect. The automatic processes are, in fact, controlled by SE, who decide what those processes do. You could start another site where SE policies do not apply, something like PhysicsOverflow. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Feb 18 '15 at 13:20
  • $\begingroup$ My main idea is not to change the policy. I wanted to see how others think about it. Starting a new site on physicsoverflow... ...I am happy with Math.SE. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Feb 18 '15 at 13:24
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    $\begingroup$ I'm amused that your answer will keep this question around. $\endgroup$
    – davidlowryduda Mod
    Feb 18 '15 at 15:52

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