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There has been some discussion recently here about deletion. What I could suggest, in order to avoid having one question here for each content we might want to delete, is to post as an answer to this question any other questions, answer or comment one would like to delete.

If you have at least 2000 reputation, you can directly vote on posts for deletion: please do so as appropriate. You will also be able to see recent posts that have accrued some delete votes: click on the most votes and recent votes headings to see them all.

If you do not have at least 2000 reputation, then please vote on the proposed deletions below: An upvote on the answer means that the post should be deleted, a negative one means that the post shouldn't. All comments are welcome. By default, if after a few days, there has not been any comment against deletion, the post will be deleted.

What do you think of such a process? It can also allow to keep track of the deletion, and the reason pro/against. Furthermore, it would move some parts of the deletion discussion from the hidden mod room to a more open space.

As F'x pointed out, good candidates for deletion can be found here

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  • 2
    Good suggestion. Good way to keep track of deletions.
    – Noble P. Abraham
    Oct 17, 2012 at 0:43
  • 2
    One can visit this page of closed and downvoted questions. Quite a few of them are good candidates for deletion.
    – F'x
    Oct 17, 2012 at 9:39
  • Okay, I've finally found the quote I was looking for that summarizes the SE policy on closed questions. See my edit there. In short: closed questions should be, after some time, either reopened or deleted. This is a temporary state, and they should not accumulate. Each site is free to adopt its own policies, but I believe the reasons that make the SE policy desirable on the other sites make it the right choice here.
    – F'x
    Oct 17, 2012 at 14:46
  • Quoting Grace Note: “It is often spoken of that a closed off-topic question could be left on the site "as an example of what doesn't belong". This sounds great on paper, but in practice it doesn't work out.” (source)
    – F'x
    Oct 17, 2012 at 15:09
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    @F'x (and @ everyone else as well) As per my edit on the original meta question discussing deletions, I think this question is fundamentally correct, but looking at it from the wrong angle. The question should be, "which of these posts can be salvaged?", with the implicit understanding that unsalvageable posts should be deleted.
    – eykanal
    Oct 17, 2012 at 15:40
  • eykanal: I maintain my personal deletion policy stated in the question you mention, i.e., I will keep using my mod privilege to directly delete offensive/spam. However, as I have not been elected, and since we've been talking about deletion, I felt it could be a good thing to bring the deletion discussion in a public place, rather than as simple flags "should be deleted". Hopefully, one day, we'll have elections, and some mods might be elected on their deletion policy. In the mean time, we can discuss openly about it.
    – user102
    Oct 17, 2012 at 15:41
  • @Charles - I respect that, and I think this discussion has been constructive so far. I know I've learned a few things about how SO works. Check out my revised answer here and see if you agree/disagree; I'm going to delete my answer here, as it's no longer relevant.
    – eykanal
    Oct 17, 2012 at 15:44
  • My main concern is the audience we drag from search engines. If you google "UEP-graph", Academia.SE is in the top links. I don't think we gain anything by that, on the contrary. Hence, I'd be in favor of deleting it.
    – user102
    Oct 17, 2012 at 15:45
  • I would also see this thread as a chance to explain why we don't want to delete a question. I don't really like the fact that you can't explain a user why you dismiss a flag.
    – user102
    Oct 17, 2012 at 15:46
  • @eykanal Good, I think the rewording would make things much friendly. But, I think let's keep the word 'deletion' in question in title itself, so that people get more cautious in framing their question and making the suggested edits. People would act fast, if a deletion note is put.
    – Noble P. Abraham
    Oct 18, 2012 at 0:57
  • @eykanal: I agree with you, it might have been better to ask which one we could salvage, with the implicit idea that the others would be deleted. When I started this thread, I was still on the idea of deleting as little as possible. Now, for the sake of consistency (i.e., upvote on an answer means deletion), I'd rather keep "deleted" in the title, but we can also start over a new thread.
    – user102
    Oct 18, 2012 at 8:08
  • Actually, Charles, you can send an explanation. You have to click through "Declined," and then select "other." Then you can specify a short reason for dismissing it. (The notice is only about 200 characters long, so you have to be brief!)
    – aeismail
    Oct 26, 2012 at 9:36
  • @aeismail: yes, you're right, I noticed that afterwards. But I guess I prefer it in the open anyway :)
    – user102
    Oct 30, 2012 at 9:19

3 Answers 3

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I wonder if this question has now served its purpose. I believe when the question was asked we really hadn't come up with a consensus of when to delete. I didn't even realize closed questions could/needed to be deleted. The number of undeleted closed questions is relatively small, and none are more than 3 weeks old. I personally have decided to let questions set in the closed state for at least a couple of weeks to see if they get edited.

By not using this question we would lose some of the discussion, but I would hope the discussion would happen at the close stage and not the delete stage.

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  • I agree with you, the original purpose of this question was to avoid the scenario "someone flags for deletion, and one moderator does it because they aren't enough high-reps users." I believe there are now enough users taking care of deletion, so perhaps we don't need this question anymore. Anyway, any question can be brought to meta in case there is a need for deletion.
    – user102
    Feb 11, 2013 at 10:06
  • I was very active on this question, pushing toward deletion of quite a few questions. I think it has served its purpose, and it's time to retire it. Maybe one thing we could do instead is open a thread of “questions that could do with a good editing”?
    – F'x
    Feb 11, 2013 at 16:32
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https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7722/2700

This question has been closed because it's not really answerable. Clearly, the level of difficulty for studies is something very subjective, and it wouldn't make sense to quantify it. Also, the point here is not to post (non constructive) opinions, and an answer such as "I found my master quite hard" is not suited for here

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A rhetorical question What is IRDAM Journal?, where I am the only answerer.

Should the community keep it? IMO, the question could have been edited, but eventually closed.

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  • I'm not sure this question should be deleted. I'm not even sure it should have been closed in the first place. It’s OK to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions. In other words, I don't believe it's a rhetorical question (i.e., asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information), but simply a question where the OP knows the answer.
    – user102
    Oct 17, 2012 at 8:25
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    I guess I want people looking for the acronym IRDAM to eventually arrive on Academia.SE, and to find the question and the answer. Noble, I guess your edit suggestion is good, I guess you can go ahead with it, it would be a pity to delete your answer too.
    – user102
    Oct 17, 2012 at 8:28
  • 3
    I tried to improve question as requested. Feel free to edit if you think it can be improved.
    – Atilla Ozgur
    Oct 17, 2012 at 9:55
  • @AtillaOzgur: I think the improvement is enough, I'm going to reopen your question.
    – user102
    Oct 17, 2012 at 10:24
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    @AtillaOzgur The edit is good. I have voted to reopen the question. Please vote down this post so that it is not deleted. Charles, Thank you for your feedback.
    – Noble P. Abraham
    Oct 17, 2012 at 10:25
  • And now, we have a good question, but the only existing (upvoted and accepted) answer doesn’t match the question any more :(
    – F'x
    Oct 22, 2012 at 14:07
  • accepted??.....
    – Noble P. Abraham
    Oct 22, 2012 at 14:51
  • I think this answer can be deleted now since the question has been reopened.
    – StrongBad
    Feb 10, 2013 at 12:49

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