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The question Example of a metric space where diameter of a ball is not equal twice the radius was recently removed (around an hour ago). I noticed this because I had written an answer to the question, so I lost 80 reputation points.

I liked the question and I also put in effort in answering, so I was wondering if there is any way the post could be undeleted. Or, if there are good reasons for why the question was deleted then is it okay to ask what the reasons are?

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    There’s no need for such hostility. – Brahadeesh Nov 5 at 20:50
  • Nothing I said was hostile. They are facts of the matter. Sorry you'd rather not think about those facts, Brahadeesh. – amWhy Nov 5 at 20:52
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    Sorry to disagree amWhy. – Brahadeesh Nov 5 at 20:54
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    "The question was not presented well. It lacked context." It also lacked motivation, a citation of the source of the question, any thoughts the asker had on it. It merely asked, in a one-line-sentence, "Is there any metric space where the diameter of a ball is smaller than twice the radius?" Period. That you chose to answer it is on you, Brahedeesh. And me saying so isn't an act of "hostility". You may not like me pointing that out the fact that no one forced you to answer a very low quality question, but that doesn't mean my words are an act of hostility. – amWhy Nov 5 at 21:00
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    @Brahadeesh Do you know the person that asked the question? Otherwise, your edit "I am currently taking a course on metric spaces, and a common theme that I notice[...]" is extremely dishonest. We want real context here, not made up context. – Michael Greinecker♦ Nov 12 at 7:34
  • @MichaelGreinecker you are right, Michael; I did have serious misgivings about adding such a line and I appreciate your feedback. I had come up with the same question myself the first time I had taken a course on metric spaces and I used that to formulate the "context". – Brahadeesh Nov 12 at 9:03
  • I will remove the line now. Any other feedback is also appreciated. Of course, if the end result is that the post remains of poor quality then it must go, no question about that. – Brahadeesh Nov 12 at 9:04
up vote 5 down vote accepted

The question was not presented well. It lacked "context." For example, it did not include definitions of the relevant notions, or any other complementary information. (As can bee seen from comments in the thread, it would have been helpful to be explicit about what is meant.)

Such questions are frequently deleted.

Deletion could have been prevented if somebody had put some effort into providing guidance to the asker to improve the question. Ideally, this should have happen before answers are provided.

It is possible for questions to be undelete. There is even a dedicated thread for such requests Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes (volume 07/2018 - today)

In any case, improvement of this question will be necessary to ensure it staying visible on the site.

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  • Thank you. I thought the question was closed for lack of context and that was the end of it. I didn't know that poor questions are sometimes deleted even after they have received several answers. – Brahadeesh Nov 5 at 18:21
  • I would like to improve the question as best as I see fit. Should I open a request on the thread you linked? I can't edit it right now. – Brahadeesh Nov 5 at 18:21
  • @Brahadeesh yes in principle it could make sense to ask there (see the end of the comment though). There might be some objection to you editing the post rather than OP doing it, but that's not a given. If there is such a push back another solution is to reask your own version of the question. We can then merge the two threads. (I'd wait with that though.) [I'd also wait with posting in the other thread. This thread serves in a way the same purpose at the moment.] – quid♦ Nov 5 at 18:26
  • Ah, understood. – Brahadeesh Nov 5 at 18:33
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    I have tried to vote to undelete (so that Brahadeesh can edit), but my vote did not register and my attempt froze my computer. – Gerry Myerson Nov 5 at 22:51
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    @GerryMyerson there is no reason why that should happen; most likely a "random" effect. It should work. Could you try again? – quid♦ Nov 5 at 23:21
  • Done, and it worked. But it's not the only time this, or something similar, has happened. – Gerry Myerson Nov 6 at 4:53
  • @GerryMyerson what I meant to stress is that this post is undeletable by the community (which is not always the case; eg, a mod-delete post cannot be undeleted by design). If you can isolate the problem, you might post a bug report. – quid♦ Nov 6 at 8:21

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