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I have recently learnt that deleting questions is not the correct way to improve our bad quality Q/A. For example on an SE site, If someone had low reputation and asked some bad quality question and later deleted them to come out of it's trouble. But later it is found that they were banned from asking questions and would be given a chance to improve their question-asking after some months.

So, I want to know that how many* questions or answers can a user delete safely without running into any troubles like ban on question asking (and any other trouble if it exist)? Does this depend upon the reputation too — like a highly reputed user can delete more Q/A than a lower one ?

Thanks. Please forgive if my question is too naive. I am learning about SE policies.

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    $\begingroup$ An exact answer to this question is unlikely - the precise workings of the algorithm that decides on question bans are a bit of a secret to prevent users attempting to game them. $\endgroup$
    – KReiser
    May 2 at 16:36
  • $\begingroup$ @KReiser What does "game" mean here ? $\endgroup$
    – An_Elephant
    May 2 at 17:00
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    $\begingroup$ @An_Elephant: See here dictionary.com/browse/game: “To game is used figuratively to mean to cheat or manipulate to one’s advantage.” $\endgroup$
    – Martin R
    May 2 at 17:39
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    $\begingroup$ @An_Elephant FYI, please see the "Are deleted posts taken into account too?" section of this answer to the network Meta FAQ What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?. Note that section includes a link to Should I avoid deleting my questions? which I believe you will also find to be of interest. $\endgroup$
    – John Omielan
    May 2 at 17:43
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinR But how can someone take advantage by cheating and manipulating the knowledge of number of maximum deletions ? $\endgroup$
    – An_Elephant
    May 2 at 19:58
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    $\begingroup$ An interesting question. Suppose I knew that deleting 17 or more of my posts would get me banned, but deleting 16 or fewer would not. Then I could deliberately be very careful to have no more than 16 of my posts deleted at any given time, and I'd avoid banning. But is that a bad thing? If the powers-that-be have decided that they can live with 16 deletions, but not with 17, then making that knowledge public would enable me to stay within the rules. It's like speed limit signs on our roads. I'm not gaming the system by driving exactly at the speed limit, I'm obeying the law. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    May 2 at 22:19
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    $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson So it will be good and not bad 😀 $\endgroup$
    – An_Elephant
    May 2 at 23:02
  • $\begingroup$ I would guess that you have in mind self-deleting your own Questions and Answers. The cautionary note is that while deleting your downvoted posts will visibly improve your reputation, this does not mitigate an overall poor vote score on posts when the (automated) criteria for Question and Answer bans are performed. In general it is best to act early when your post is of low-quality, so that fewer downvotes accumulate to affect your postive ratings on the site. For posts that have a prospect of improvement, it is better, from the perspective of Community content, to have those improvements. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    May 3 at 18:45
  • $\begingroup$ @hardmath No , I wasn't asking for myself. It was a general and an hypothetical question. $\endgroup$
    – An_Elephant
    May 3 at 18:54

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