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I can understand that questions with downvotes or closing votes are closed since they might not meet MSE quality standards. However, why should "upvoted" questions with upvoted answers be deleted? What's the benefit there?

For instance, I lost today $115$ reputation points in qualitative questions...

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Addendum

I wanted to ask this in a different question, but, since it's so related with this one I'll just add it.

How can I get my answers of deleted posts back?

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    $\begingroup$ Recent discussion, from which you can find many of the other previous discussions on this. In essence: Some of us feel strongly about quality control, and that the upvote system has been a spectacular failure at this. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 4 at 18:34
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    $\begingroup$ Also, since this is tagged auto-delete: questions that are positively scored with positively scored answers are not autodeleted. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 4 at 18:40
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    $\begingroup$ It's nonsense to do such deletions. Clearly you spend time to answer them and now it's just gone and it's like your work was not appreciated. I also find this quite counterproductive because there was math knowledge there that could have helped somebody else at some future time. $\endgroup$ – user486983 Apr 4 at 20:02
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    $\begingroup$ @Isa I totally agree! $\endgroup$ – Dr. Mathva Apr 4 at 20:10
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    $\begingroup$ @Isa Many users (myself included) here believe that giving full detailed answers to a "do-my-homework post" is not something that deserves recognition; it's trading ethics for a few green numbers. So there certainly are contexts when many people here don't view such deletions as "nonsense," regardless of your dismissive comment. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 4 at 20:39
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    $\begingroup$ @Dr.Mathva For completeness, it is worth emphasizing that not everyone who answers such questions does so for "a few green numbers". There are many users who don't pay any attention to rep, some of whom don't think that the "quality" of questions should be used to constrain teaching. Perusing 10 years of meta will reveal quite diverse views on these matters. $\endgroup$ – Bill Dubuque Apr 4 at 21:16
  • $\begingroup$ @T.Bongers Wouldn't be better to prevent such situations? Why don't you focus in the current "do-my-homework post" that have no answer yet?. Instead of looking for old "do-my-homework post" with upvotes and with answer with upvotes aswell.. What do you think it means when more than 1 user upvote a "do-my-homework post" ? $\endgroup$ – user486983 Apr 5 at 21:34
  • $\begingroup$ These aren't mutually exclusive, @Isa. I do routinely downvote and vote for closure on brand new do-my-homework posts as well (so I'm really not sure what your point is). As far as what I think it means when more than 1 user upvotes such a post, well... I think that a "like" button is not the same as quality control. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 5 at 22:11
  • $\begingroup$ @T.Bongers My point is that I think it's better to leave those "do-my-homework post" alone, with upvotes (which means some people thought it's an interesting one) and with answer with upvotes (which means someone spend time and is sharing with us the his/her knowledge). Notice that this answer could have been useful for somebody else but as is deleted now only more than 10k users can see what is all about. $\endgroup$ – user486983 Apr 5 at 23:01
  • $\begingroup$ @Isa This site has a reputation as a homework mill exactly because we leave do-my-homework posts alone or upvote them. I used to be proud of my association with MSE and my answers here, but now that's incredibly tainted by the deluge of low-quality questions and even-worse answers. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 5 at 23:25
  • $\begingroup$ @T.Bongers ¨"This site has a reputation as a homework mill" I don't see anything wrong with it, it's helpful for students, isn't it?. We also have a bunch of questions that are not homework, so this site it's fine. There is PSQ question, there is an answer so get over it. Next time we might be more clever or fast to flag such PSQ question so no one can answer it. $\endgroup$ – user486983 Apr 6 at 0:21
  • $\begingroup$ @Isa If you don't see a problem with this site having a reputation as a homework mill, then there isn't really any common ground for us to start with. But then again I guess you have no ethical qualms about this anyways. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 6 at 0:27
  • $\begingroup$ @T.Bongers nop, there're is no problem in this site having a reputation as a homework mill. I have to mention that under certain context I agree that one should flag "do-my-homework post" and possibly delete them if and only if they don't have any answers $\endgroup$ – user486983 Apr 6 at 0:37
  • $\begingroup$ @Isa If you truly don't see a problem, then I can only guess that you're not an educator and haven't actually seen the impacts of this. Oh well. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 6 at 0:45
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    $\begingroup$ @BillDubuque Of course, I don't answer in order to obtain reputation points but to try to help those who haven't understood how to deal with such problems. The thing is, that whenever one of my answers is deleted (if it was for an acceptable question), I have the feeling that the time I spent answering the question was not appreciated. Furthermore, these answers could have helped other users in the future... $\endgroup$ – Dr. Mathva Apr 6 at 8:19
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I can understand that questions with downvotes or closing votes are closed since they might not meet MSE quality standards.

Exactly right.

However, why should "upvoted" questions with upvoted answers be deleted?

Because "upvoted" does not mean "high quality." It means that a few users liked the question, regardless of its quality. Upvotes are not necessarily given as statements on post quality, appropriateness, or as a moderation action - they are more akin to a "like" button.

See, for example, some recent question closures 1, 2 before revision, and 3. All three of these are do-my-problem-without-any-input-from-me posts, and all three deserved a negative response. I just chose these from the list of recently closed questions, and these are all from within the last day.

As far as getting answers back, look for either cached results in Google or look at your "recently deleted" tab on your user page. For example, by Googling the second title you listed in quotes, I found this page with your answer. And FWIW, I strongly agree with the deletion of that question.

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  • $\begingroup$ And here is the question "What's the size of the angle?," which was also a do-my-homework post. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 4 at 20:49
  • $\begingroup$ And finally, the Fermat's little theorem question, which is the only deletion that I find questionable. $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 4 at 20:51
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    $\begingroup$ Ok. I must admit that the questions I listed weren't the best example... $\endgroup$ – Dr. Mathva Apr 4 at 20:51
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    $\begingroup$ FWIW I weakly agree with the deletion of the first question, insofar as the content is very likely to be duplicated elsewhere. That said, it's a question that plenty of people would be interested in the answer to (at some point in their lives), and the answers there were instructive. The asker also mentioned that they couldn't find where the material was duplicated, and the question was not closed because it was a duplicate. $\endgroup$ – Theo Bendit Apr 5 at 2:42
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    $\begingroup$ @TheoBendit For what it's worth, the top google hit for the phrase "not injective not surjective" is this MSE post and the second is this Wikipedia section. If the asker couldn't find it, well then... $\endgroup$ – user296602 Apr 5 at 3:30
  • $\begingroup$ Agreed. A couple of points though: a) the MSE post is not a function on $\Bbb{R}$, which a lot of people mean (implicitly) when they talk about functions, and b) the Wikipedia section doesn't actually explain why these functions are what they claim they are. But, as I say, I weakly agree with the deletion, and agree with your comment. $\endgroup$ – Theo Bendit Apr 5 at 3:36

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