Why was this question mod hammered 7+ years after the fact?

Question

This question was unilaterally deleted by a mod 7 years after it was asked. It was brought up over at MO meta as an example of a moderator (in this case me) not allowing a user to delete content. That was likely the motivating factor for deleting the question, but I don't see it meeting the standards for deletion, never mind mod deletion. I still stand by my actions then. I think everything is available to 10k+ users in the comments, but a quick recap might help:

OP asked a question about a sensitive topic (department chair being a jerk) from a throw away account. The question did not include any identifiable information or specifics. I thought it was a reasonable question, so I answered it. OP then vandalized the question in an attempt to delete it, I rolled the edit back, and OP vandalized it again. At that point I used my diamond mod powers to temporarily lock the post while the content dispute was resolved. Before locking the post, I suggested two courses of action (post disassociation and account deletion) to the OP that I thought were suitable since the post did not contain any identifying information and was from a throw away account. OP never really followed up except to complain once.

Answer 1

Ah, sorry, I actually wasn't aware of the history here. If I had been, I probably would have posted on meta -- or at least consulted with other mods -- before nuking it.

What happened here is that a user flagged this question (perhaps due to the MO discussion you linked, of which I was unaware), suggesting that it should be closed because the original poster had expressed "concerns about their safety" if the post was allowed to stay. I did not form a judgment on this claim either way.

Instead, I saw a question that was extremely off-topic and low quality -- it basically boils down to "I've mad about these 6 things, any advice?" Respectfully, I'm surprised you answered it at all. I also saw that it was 7+ years old, had few votes, and had caused a fair amount of drama. So, I thought that deleting the post was a reasonable thing to do. It's been long enough that the only answerer (you) won't even lose the rep (not that you will have a rep shortage anytime soon).

Given that this question apparently has historical significance, maybe this was the wrong call. But maybe not; this still feels like a low-quality question that has already caused way too many issues. I don't feel super strongly either way, will gladly take feedback if there is a consensus.