33
votes
How to deal with ignored answers
I don't really think that deleting your answers because no-one has reacted to them is the greatest use of your time, to be honest. There's little cost to the site to keep your answers available, and ...
- 50.4k
31
votes
Is it a good thing to erase wrong answer?
Regarding your question about keeping flawed answers: there are several reasons people delete their answers once a fundamental flaw has been pointed out:
the question will not appear in the ...
- 46.7k
28
votes
Should we vote to delete wrong answers?
In my opinion, the author of incorrect answers should, when an error is pointed out, delete their answer unless (or until) it is amended. If the author feels that the error is of value to the site, it ...
- 54.2k
23
votes
Is my joke offensive?
I deleted your answer. I didn't find it offensive. Rather, it was completely irrelevant to the question at hand.
PedroMod
- 117k
21
votes
How to deal with ignored answers
I'd normally leave a comment under the question, asking the OP if they had read my answer, and if they have any troubles understanding it or need me to elaborate on some parts.
If the OP hasn't been ...
- 375k
20
votes
Accepted
Which question on MSE has the most failed attempts?
According to this page, here are some of the questions with the greatest number of deleted answers, and with only $0$ or $1$ answer:
Apparently, How does one prove the matrix inequality $\det\left(6(...
- 22.9k
20
votes
Accepted
Answer to deleted question shows as "deleted by *owner*"?
You did delete your answer 15 seconds after you posted it, and undeleted it about two and a half minutes thereafter.
For some unfathomable reason, the software shows "deleted by owner" and the ...
- 200k
20
votes
Should we vote to delete wrong answers?
Sometimes I have posted a wrong answer. (Hard to believe, I know.) But it seemed to me that the wrong method might be considered by others, so I left the wrong answer, and added a boldface This ...
- 99.3k
20
votes
Accepted
Reasonable answer deleted by high reputation user
At this point, the answer is deleted unilaterally. The timeline can be seen, it was voted to be deleted, then voted to be undeleted. Then a moderator decided to delete anyway (and converted to a ...
- 12.9k
19
votes
Accepted
Post new answer or significantly edit old wrong answer?
There should be some continuity to the content of a post; an edit should be an edit, not a new post in the same box.
Thus, if the second answer is completely different from the first I would go for ...
quidMod
- 41.1k
18
votes
Under what circumstances is it appropriate to delete a question that has received a good answer?
Testing the waters with:
I propose that if the answer(s) can be reproduced with a call to Wolfram Alpha, then the Q&A can be deleted without any qualms.
So for example standard tricks to ...
- 124k
17
votes
Accepted
I don't understand this audit.
Just to get this question off the unasnwered list, here's the explanation (thanks to YuiTo Cheng, Xander Henderson, jgon and other commenters for the help). It turns out that the poster of the answers ...
- 16.3k
16
votes
Accepted
Why only 10k+ rep users can see all the deleted questions/answers?
The site is community moderated and most tasks can be performed by users with enough points. One of these tasks is to (soft) delete posts, to review these deletions and to undo them if needed.
To ...
quidMod
- 41.1k
16
votes
Accepted
I deleted my post. And now?
Moderators and users with sufficiently high reputation can see deleted posts. But the point of deleting a post is for the post to be deleted. Please don't delete a question just so you can repost it ...
- 30.4k
16
votes
Accepted
Why was this useful answer deleted?
It was flagged as not an answer and I had the impression the flag had merit; being on hold had nothing to do with it. But rethinking the decision, I had made a mistake. The answer is undeleted now.
- 30.4k
16
votes
Accepted
Does reputation change if an answer gets deleted due to deletion of original post by vote(s)?
In general, yes, points gained on answers that get deleted because the question gets deleted are lost. Following an undeletion the points are restored.
However, if your post satisfies both of:
has ...
quidMod
- 41.1k
15
votes
Under what circumstances is it appropriate to delete a question that has received a good answer?
I hesitate to give an answer as I am not (yet) involved in this aspect of the moderation (on this site). Yet, I try to present an argument for a certain way of seeing things, and I would be curious to ...
quidMod
- 41.1k
15
votes
Accepted
What can I do if the problem is deleted when I tried to edit my answer?
For the current case, the user that had asked the question self-deleted the question. I undid this and told the user that this should not be done. (It was a new user; some believe in error that this ...
quidMod
- 41.1k
13
votes
Accepted
Someone edited my answer... years after I deleted it!
Users with 10,000 rep or more can see deleted answers (and moderators, although in practice they likely have more than 10,000 rep anyway).
One way to make deleted answers less prominent is to edit ...
- 78.5k
13
votes
Accepted
A case for deleting wrong answers
Irrespective of the correctness or lack thereof of the answer, I came to the conclusion that it didn't really attempt to answer the question. I deleted it.
- 200k
13
votes
Short answer turned into a comment by moderator
This meta post is tagged "specific answer", so I'll frame my remarks accordingly.
The posting of very short "hint" answers has come up a few dozen times here, for example "Is ...
- 35.5k
12
votes
What would be the right answer to the question "Is this a typo in my textbook"?
Some aspects of this are similar to the issues with solution verification posts: sometimes those posts are just unanswerable.
An answer of the form
"Yes, this is an error. Well spotted."
...
- 13.9k
11
votes
Accepted
On a certain answer of mine
The meaning of "not an answer" can be somewhat counter-intuitive and thus sometimes leads to confusions.
Text written in the answer box should be flagged as not an answer when
"[it] was posted as ...
quidMod
- 41.1k
11
votes
Accepted
Getting reputation back after deleting answer
Yes, this is correct. Votes cast earlier on deleted content do not influence your reputation down the road; roughly speaking, the reputation is determined based on non-deleted content only. (There are ...
quidMod
- 41.1k
11
votes
What would be the right answer to the question "Is this a typo in my textbook"?
This Answer is in addition to Arctic Char's (which I agree with). Regarding the similarities to solution-verification, there are the discussions
The problem with proof verification ,
Why do users ...
- 32.1k
10
votes
Is there any way to see my deleted questions or answers?
EDIT: Since now (January 2022) any user can get a list of all their deleted questions (answers), this answer is no longer relevant if you want to find one of your own deleted posts. I will still leave ...
- 50.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible