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There are multiple questions on meta about users deleting their question right after receiving an answer, before this answer can be upvoted.

See this and this

I don't see any reason to leave this 'window of opportunity'. No one benefits from it, except for dishonest people.

If an answer left is not relevant to the question and the OP has noticed that the question is bad and wants to delete it, then they can just flag the answer for moderator's attention and wait until it's deleted. Or even edit the question since no relevant answers were given yet.

If the answer is on point, then it's not the answerer's fault that the OP changed their mind.

Do you agree that the deletion of answered questions by the asker should not be allowed?

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    $\begingroup$ In another discussion on meta this meta.SE feature request was linked: Preventing misuse of question self-deletion. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Aug 2, 2016 at 12:07
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    $\begingroup$ It's not necessarily dishonest to delete your question, even after getting an answer. I've deleted my own answered questions because I didn't like the reception. You could argue that the majority of questions are homework problems, but what about people like me who have never asked for help with homework in their lives and just want to learn something? $\endgroup$
    – Matt Samuel
    Aug 2, 2016 at 23:06
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    $\begingroup$ @Matt, we're going a bit off-topic here, but I would say that once someone answers your question, you are no longer the only person with an investment in that question, and to delete the question without the approval of the user or users who have answered is an insult to that user or users. There are other ways to express your dislike of the reception a question of yours gets. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Aug 2, 2016 at 23:56
  • $\begingroup$ I second Gerry on this, perhaps the OP may not have a need, but someone on the site thought the question was good enough to receive an answer, and that could be of use to others. Now on the other hand, I think @MattSamuel brings up a good point with reception. While the first goal here of course is to learn and share knowledge, this is STILL a digital profile that we have. And messy questions, filled with not-so-nice comments etc... may be something we want to distance ourselves from. In that case, instead of "deleting" a question, there should be a way to disconnect accounts from questions. $\endgroup$
    – Sidharth Ghoshal
    Aug 3, 2016 at 1:06
  • $\begingroup$ meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/13112/… also is an interesting conundrum $\endgroup$
    – Sidharth Ghoshal
    Aug 3, 2016 at 1:08
  • $\begingroup$ @frog, that's the first link in Martin's comment. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Aug 3, 2016 at 3:52
  • $\begingroup$ In this context it might be worth mentioning that you can find your own deleted answers after reaching 10k; see here for details. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Aug 3, 2016 at 4:55
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    $\begingroup$ Wow, this is so naive. Have you ever seen how question deletion actually plays out in practice? e.g. Sometimes people's questions just keep getting downvoted for whatever reason, and then someone posts a stupid "answer" that entirely misses the subtlety that's the crux of the question. So the OP just wants to delete it and doesn't see it being worth saving (if even possible -- sometimes too many downvotes just make it hard). Now you're saying they have to keep it on there and take a constant beating instead of just being able to delete it already? $\endgroup$
    – user541686
    Aug 6, 2016 at 5:00
  • $\begingroup$ @Mehrdad, questions do not "take a beating" for no reason. Once the reason is explained in the comments, you are free to edit! Moreover, if the answer is "stupid", just flag it and wait for moderator's intervention. Even if you get something like -100 (which is impossible, unless your question is really bad), once the "stupid" answer is deleted you are free to delete your question and get all the reputation back. Maybe before calling me naive you actually look at my own questions and answers. I have posts with negative or zero score, and I keep them because they are important to me. $\endgroup$
    – Yuriy S
    Aug 6, 2016 at 9:38
  • $\begingroup$ @You'reInMyEye: They take beatings for reasons besides quality. They take beatings because some people's egos get bruised by not knowing an answer. They take beatings because people don't like that a question is doing something unorthodox, even when it's perfectly written. They take beatings because some think anything they don't care about is "too localized". This is why I ask if you've seen reality. And "just flag it and wait for moderator's intervention"? Since when have you seen moderators delete answers that look right from the outside but entirely miss the point of the question? $\endgroup$
    – user541686
    Aug 6, 2016 at 10:04
  • $\begingroup$ @Mehrdad, see my other meta question by the way $\endgroup$
    – Yuriy S
    Aug 6, 2016 at 10:05
  • $\begingroup$ @You'reInMyEye: Which one? I don't see any by you linked here. $\endgroup$
    – user541686
    Aug 6, 2016 at 10:07
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    $\begingroup$ @AlecRhea, that's for Math Overflow. Math.SE is not for research. Besides, it would be absolutely dishonest to recieve some help with your research and then delete both the question and the answer, with intent to use it later. What about the person who answered? $\endgroup$
    – Yuriy S
    Aug 6, 2016 at 16:59
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    $\begingroup$ @AlecRhea, the premise of this post is that the askers delete questions with no warning to the answerer, leaving them with no access to their own work. Do you see what I mean here? $\endgroup$
    – Yuriy S
    Aug 7, 2016 at 8:43
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    $\begingroup$ @YuriyS: You said, «if the answer is "stupid", just flag it and wait for moderator’s intervention.»  Moderators generally do not delete questions just because they are wrong. $\endgroup$
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Aug 9, 2016 at 4:45

2 Answers 2

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I am in favor of this proposal. While moderators currently do not generally delete answers for being wrong, it would seem reasonable for moderators to respond to requests to delete a question/answer pair by request of OP when the answer is mediocre and the question is bad (or more precisely, when the moderator determines that the QA pair does not have lasting value). In other words, for the "default case" we do not allow self deletion of answered questions, but the moderators can override this in cases when the self-deletion is justified.

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No. If it is a question got a lot of downvotes because it was not well formulated, had a bad format, is unclear, ..., then I think it is better the question is deleted than it survives. My experience is that most of he poster of bad questions will not put any effort to improve the question if it is already answered. I think the chances that a good upvoted question will be deleted are rather small.

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    $\begingroup$ I feel this answer misses the point a bit. The proposal is about selfdeletes only. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Aug 10, 2016 at 10:36
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    $\begingroup$ So why should the person who answered loose access to their own post with no warning? $\endgroup$
    – Yuriy S
    Aug 10, 2016 at 10:39
  • $\begingroup$ @quid yes I know. I think it is better to remove a bad question than leave it unimproved. $\endgroup$
    – miracle173
    Aug 10, 2016 at 10:43
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the clarification. I can kind of see your point. But I think it only concerns a few corner cases. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Aug 10, 2016 at 18:13

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