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I did not vote to delete this question, and would not, and got (more then once, I think) into an argument over something similar (on the against deletion side). However, your style annoys me.
I suspect that we do not all agree with the idea that all soft questions should be deleted if they have received highly upvoted answers and comments.
Well, it is not like there are no closed soft questions of the form you mention that could be deleted. So, somehow it seems this is anyway accepted as consensus. (Except in exceptional circumstances, which this one is in a certain sense in my opinion.)
It also disturbing that a large percentage of deleted questions, which are not deleted by owner, are deleted by the same small group of people.
Yes, indeed. But in the other way than you might mean. The non-involvement of many otherwise active users in the general maintenance of the site (and there is not only closing and deleting, where one could contribute) is disturbing on occassion. But well as often in live it is a lot more convenient to complain about the way others do it than to contribute something.
Finally, the level of half- and misinformation you managed to spread in an rather alarmist style is also somewhat noteworthy. And, FYI, only a couple of days ago deletion policy got recalled: http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1577/possible-premature-closure/
I hope the mods will chime in with what they think the deletion policy should be.
As Andres pointed out, there is a policy not to delete any questions with substantial answers. There are no other deletion policies per se, users set the line between what is deleted and what is simply closed. This is not a hard line, we expect borderline cases to be discussed here.
It also disturbing that a large percentage of deleted questions, which are not deleted by owner, are deleted by the same small group of people.
This is a common belief. Of 100 eligible users, I counted 8 different users responsible for deletions over the past two days. I know a few more users who regularly delete questions but haven't done so in the past two days. Also, a few eligible users are no longer active on MO at all. So the participation in deletion rate is at least 10%. I personally wouldn't expect more than that but maybe others think the participation rate should be higher.
I thought that somebody voted to delete as soon as the question reopened[...]
I have no idea what you mean here. As you (rightly) explained in the other thread open questions cannot be deleted; one can also not vote to delete them. (A question needs to be closed for two days before one can vote to delete it as a 10k+ user.) So how should anybody have voted to delete it as soon as it reopened'? One can only vote to delete before it reopened.
The old threads implied that one couldn't delete questions with accepted answers, but maybe that is only for the OP.
If this restriction was for OP (of question), they just could unaccept (except for the far in between special cases of a bounty) if they wanted to, it seems. [Added: I take this back; I have no active exprience with this and while I know by observation that one can unaccept, there could be restrictions, like for changing votes, that I am actually not aware of.] So, this would be a strange non-restriction. Do theses threads perhaps rather imply OP of an answer cannot delete the answer if it is accepted; and/or OP of a question cannot delete (unilatteraly) the question if there are well-received answers (by the community as expressed via votes).
Hope this helps to clear up some possibly present additional confusion.
(I am a bit short on time; please do not expect follow ups soonish.)
It is always an option for the OP to vote to delete their questions. While the question has attracted little attention this vote is sufficient to delete the question, but it is not sufficient on its own if the question has accepted, upvoted, or multiple answers since deleting the question would also delete these answers without any other checks and balances.
[Edit: The software has changed a lot with respect to this over time, I believe at the time we were frozen upvoted meant at least two upvotes and multiple meant at least three answers. The rules are different on the SE network.]
I meant when the question was re-closed and I saw less than an hour after a delete vote I got upset.
I entertained that idea, which is why I added my remark in parenthesis that a question needs to be closed for two days before one can vote to delete it. So also this is based on a basic misunderstanding of the workings of the site (as opposed to some subtle point if votes get reset or expire).
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