tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?)

dr comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20529)

2012-11-12T04:03:57-08:00

@quid : :-) Thanks for the answer. The question has nothing to do with me or my questions. Just wanted to know how it would work in such a scenario. I was expecting kind of same (soft deletion). :-)

quid comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20528)

2012-11-12T03:39:05-08:00

Now what should the OP do in this case?

Call the police! Or, relax a bit. :-)

More seriously, while I consider it as not very likely that things will be 'stolen' in this way, this is perhaps besides the point. So, possibly, the following information is of some use to you:

These deletes on MO are "soft" deletes. The question and all that goes with it are not truly/fully deleted. "Deletion" on MO (at least the one we are talking about here) merely means that in some database the item is marked as "delted", which in turn means that it is displayed differently to those browsing the site (where "differently" means "not at all" for most users). But it can always be recreated if needed. So, if ever you should need to establish your priority on some idea via an MO question, you could, if this eventually arises, then ask for an undeletion. [In general I consider this first as a bit unlikely, and second MO not as the place to establish priority on your ideas. But, well, this is perhaps besides the point.]

dr comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20527)

2012-11-12T01:39:13-08:00

Suppose I have a problem in mind (the whole setup of which I have created myself), then I post it as a question on MO to get some insights, now the question may contain a few issues which are not very clearly defined (which is quite natural) or may be it is not appealing to a few people and after a few days, they go on to delete the question without even informing the OP. The question was visible to the public for a few days and it might get stolen by someone. Now what should the OP do in this case?

Bill Johnson comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20525)

2012-11-10T20:39:33-08:00

I agree, Mariano. I view deleting as a way to clean up the site.

Mariano comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20524)

2012-11-10T20:31:29-08:00

There is a point in deleting questions that are not felt to be a good match for the site: they otherwise pollute search results.

geraldedgar comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20513)

2012-11-08T05:18:40-08:00

This also seems sensible to me:
deleting a question should be reserved for spam, obvious homework, and few other special cases.

And certainly except in these cases we should wait much longer than the 4-day minimum to do it.

quid comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20511)

2012-11-07T13:35:02-08:00

@Will Jagy: thank you for the information, this is very kind of you. There it is the one, the last one, I remembered.

I should perhaps add/explain that it was not my intent to suggest some 'conspiracy' against dr, yet only to point out that (likely) dr is/was not just talking about a single deleted question, as suggested by the first reply, but a sequence of such events (possibly all noted at once or in somewhat rapid succession).

Will Jagy comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20510)

2012-11-07T12:06:22-08:00

Well, errors are possible, but I went back including this month and October and September. The deletions are listed in pages, a certain number per page. It appears that account had little activity in September, a little in October, then a mild flurry in November, including editing a closed question and self-deleting an answer. My summary would be that people taking care of deletions do not do that every day, or go back as far as I have this time, so some clustering occurs. However, the idea of a coordinated elimination is not supported.

Nov. 6 page 2 http://mathoverflow.net/questions/111349/id-like-to-know-if-this-type-of-result-is-known-or-are-there-any-very-similar-re

Nov. 4 page 5 http://mathoverflow.net/questions/61797/a-class-of-functions/62614#62614

Nov. 4 page 6 http://mathoverflow.net/questions/61797/a-class-of-functions-closed

Nov. 3 page 7 http://mathoverflow.net/questions/110137/request-for-advice-on-picking-a-right-journal-to-publish-a-new-theorem-which-is-c

Alexander Chervov comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20509)

2012-11-07T11:44:59-08:00

What is deletion policy ?
I would think this is natural:

gilkalai 1 day ago

I agree with Tom that deleting a question should be reserved for spam, obvious homework, and few other special cases.

http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1458/hurricanes-and-navierstokes-equation/#Item_37

Will Jagy comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20507)

2012-11-07T11:33:58-08:00

quid, it is a bit of work, but on MO the logs on deletion stay available back to the beginning of the site. Maybe I will look through. There are a handful of people who regularly delete closed questions after the two day minimum. My guess is that these deletions were not at the same time.

quid comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20506)

2012-11-07T07:13:57-08:00

Sorry for coming back to this. I now noticed the plural in dr's post, and I think dr asked over time several questions and they seem all gone. The account Rajesh D has 67 rep with 0 questions 0 answers.

This is a bit unusual; in particular if ever (I cannot know) all were deleted at about the same time.

So to follow up on geraldedgar it seems to me the question of dr is why the account was essentially completely eliminated.

geraldedgar comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20505)

2012-11-07T05:14:52-08:00

Asked November 3, closed November 3, deleted November 6. So I guess the claim is that deletion was too soon, so that the OP didn't have sufficient opportunity to read the comments.

quid comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20504)

2012-11-07T03:37:44-08:00

To give some context. As far as I remember there was quite a bit of commenting (including me) on this question in some sense answering the question, which is a request of an amateur on how to proceed when being under the believe of having found a new result. The issue of dr does not seem to be the closure or lack of feedback at that point, but later deletion.

ADDED: In view of the dates geraldedgar provided later, I am now unsure whether I remember this right; there definitely was a question like this by I quite strongly believe dr; but there was also another more recent one by dr, I think, asking about the result specifically. (It seems also gone.) I might have mixed up the two.

HJRW comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20503)

2012-11-07T02:31:50-08:00

It's unfortunate when something like this happens without proper feedback. In general, it's better if questions are closed with a comment explaining the reason. (This is a general principle. I haven't seen the question under discussion.)

Andy Putman comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20502)

2012-11-06T19:45:56-08:00

Here's a link to your question : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/111349/id-like-to-know-if-this-type-of-result-is-known-or-are-there-any-very-similar-re

It was deleted because 3 high ranking users voted to delete it. This is often done when a question is judged to not be appropriate for this website.

dr comments on "Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?" (20501)

2012-11-06T19:22:16-08:00

Why are my questions deleted without even being informed?

My username : Rajesh D

Someone please explain me. Today I was surprised on not seeing my questions on my home page.