@Anton. You will be able to clear up a supposition of VA, since you have server logs and all:

This may be a meta question, but who reads meta threads, right?

So, is it true that not many people read meta(as opposed to the number who follow MO main screen)?

Also, I wonder, what invited such a strong reaction to this question, while the question about what to do while stuck at NY airport got through with much less fanfare?

For future reference, both moderators and anyone with 10k+ reputation can see deleted answers, so if there's information you actually need from them, just ask any one of us.

"Can you also see deleted questions?"

Yes, though you don't just stumble upon deleted questions. You have to find them somehow (like the deleted tab under the tools menu).

So all interested parties on meta are aware, I'm copying a comment from VA explaining what he found most frustrating about the situation:

Noah: I was most upset by the fact that one participant took the challenge and volunteered to write an addon in a few days. But with the question closed and the incentives, such as they are here (the "points") gone, and no way to communicate the results (one can not add answers to a closed question), he apparently abandoned it. So that's anti-progress. Mine was the only voice to reopen for a month. So I had to post a new question.

(In my opinion, VA has a very valid complaint here.)

I posted a comment asking VA to remove his last 2 sentences in the answer fgdorais refer to two posts above, which I found unnecessary. Which makes me wonder: if there had been no votes to close and the drama that follows, would the question be answered so effectively and quickly?

So may be this is how democracy works. There are often passionate debates, and progress is painful, but if everyone acts in good faith, some good product would eventually come out? Anyway, may be this is just my attempt to put a positive spin on things...

Noah, I think he's thinking of Dror's message on the first question.

...
Mine was the only voice to reopen for a month. So I had to post a new question.

(In my opinion, VA has a very valid complaint here.)

I agree. I think people were justified in closing the first question, and by the time the second question was asked, things had already gone wrong. The problem is that there should never be an isolated person on a quest to reopen (or close) a question. It's frustrating, and there's no reason such a person shouldn't have people agreeing with her (or actively disagreeing with her).

Unfortunately, voting to reopen isn't the same as voicing for reopening. This is a shame, because I think if the first question had gotten some attention it would have been edited to look like the newer form of the question and reopened. As far as I can tell, there weren't any voices for reopening the question: there weren't any comments calling for the question not to be closed or for it to be reopened. François left a comment about how the question should be changed, but there wasn't any actual reaction to that comment until a month later. VA didn't give any indication that he disagreed with the question being closed, and his edit came of as suggesting that he may have actually agreed with people's cries that the question was off topic. It was almost impossible to know that VA was stewing in frustration for a month. If some people did know, they were quiet about it: I didn't even know the first question existed until the fiasco with the second question started.

Is there something we could have done to effectively get VA (or at least his first question) onto meta earlier? I deeply believe it would have solved the problem, and that it would have been the right solution. However, for all I know, my attempts to contact him by email have failed, he hasn't looked at meta at all, and believes that there are many high rep users on MO who are unreasonable and who disagree with him in some fundamental way. Needless to say, I'm not very happy with this being a possibility.

I haven't checked them all, but I don't fully understand what happened with the following:

• Closed-opened-closed. No reason why?

  http://mathoverflow.net/questions/6660

  http://mathoverflow.net/questions/10523

  http://mathoverflow.net/questions/22221

• Dead?

  http://mathoverflow.net/questions/14282

• Reopened only for changing reason of closure?

  http://mathoverflow.net/questions/4619

  http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7949

I'll update if I find more oddities or explanations.

Thanks for the help Jonas.

Of course, Anton knows this, but I thought I might add: if you think a question should be reopened, you can flag it for moderator attention, and explain that you think it should be reopened. I think reopening a question after changes to address earlier complaints is something moderators feel comfortable doing on their own.

@chrisnormandy755887: I agree with me (and I think some other mathematicians actually using the site) that many of these off-topic question make MO unpleasant. In addition asking them is rude in the first please, and getting uneasy if they are closed is again rude. Too bad you won't be back. Also somewhat rude, in my opinion. But oh well, it is the internet and we have to live with a certain level of rudeness I guess.