-1

This is more like a feature-request than a question. Anyway: I have some questions and I would like to delete some of these questions (some have upvoted answers).

By deleting I mean that I don't want to show those questions in my profile page. I can send an email to stackoverflow team, but this sounds an overkill to me.

I don't care if those questions remain on stackoverflow or on another website network, I simply want to hide them from my profile page. I am the OP of those questions and I have also a good amount of reputation on stackoverflow +10k, so I think users like me should have this possibility, without resorting to send an email to stackoverflow asking for a complete removal, or flag for a moderator.

For example there could be a an option to transfer the ownership of the question to a fake-account such as Community ♦, ONLY for trusted users with, for example, more than 10k reputation. This would be a win-win for both users and stackoverflow:

  • the questions will not be deleted (i.e. it will continue to get views from Google);
  • the user will not have that question in his profile page AND the user will keep all the downvotes if any;

Maybe give this possibility with a reputation cost, such as each time you hide a question you get -1 reputation and also you keep all the downvotes (if any).

Final note:

Considering stackoverflow has more than 3 million users, I don't think there is any added value by showing an user nickname under a question (rather than a fake user) if the user doesn't want to be associated with that question.

14
  • @dynamic "CC:WIKI" does not mean that the post is community wiki. It refers to a type of license governing the posts, which as I understand it is CC BY-SA so I'm a bit puzzled by the mention of CC WIKI there. (Mistake on my part: I believe CC WIKI means the Creative Commons Wiki rather than a specific type of license. At any rate, it is about the license, not the posts covered by the license.)
    – Louis
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:09
  • Oh my bad. I thought it was only for community-wiki questions. Anyway I would avoid to flag for moderator attention at least for users with more than 10k reputation, there should be an easier way
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:10
  • I don't see how this can be duplicate of that question. I am asking for a feature (like a button), not a flag to a moderator that needs to choose whenever or not to accept that :)
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:14
  • There already is a feature - it's just manual. They will not add options to allow users to do this themselves. It is intentionally difficult to do this so that it is not abused. In fact, you can be suspended if you abuse the privilege of having your name removed from everything you post.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:14
  • 1
    @animuson: not everyone, users with more than 10k, and not to every post, but only for some questions that I would like to not show on my profile page
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:15
  • @dynamic Reputation is an irrelevant factor here. High-reputation users are just as likely to abuse such a feature. I've seen it happen.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:16
  • I don't see the abuse factor here. If I keep the question on stackoverflow and I simply remove my name from the question, where is the abuse? Also considering it is stated in the CC:WIKI I think it's a right to have that without making a moderator waste his time for this kind of requests
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:16
  • Removing your name from posts just to reverse reputation effects from something you can't delete is a very abusive use of such a feature. Your "keep the downvotes" idea simply isn't possible. Disassociation removes the user ID from a post - there's no possible way the system could track reputation effects for a user from a disassociated post.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:25
  • I don't think that is impossibile. When transferring ownership, if the question has downvotes the system will remove to your profile the same amount of reputation (with a new kind of event) and it can even remove more reputation just to discourage that. to @cVplZ: thanks!
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:33
  • @dynamic By the way, I edited my comment but I guess you did not see the edit. Contrarily to what I initially wrote, I believe now that "CC:WIKI" refers to the Wiki that Creative Commons established and not to a specific license. I read it as a license name because people write things like "CC BY-SA" to refer to one specific license among those that CC has. And I figured "CC:WIKI" is another license name. Your question seems to incorporate my initial misconception.
    – Louis
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:40
  • @dynamic The reputation system is not designed to do that. That's the exact reason they declined the request to have spam/offensive nuked posts on Meta affect the main profile. You can't just arbitrarily create reputation events.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:40
  • 2
    All technical things aside - no one is arguing that users shouldn't be able to remove their name from posts. As we've stated, there's already a process for that, and having it be manual lets the Stack Exchange team easily track user behavior about disassociating posts. Yes, you have the right to remove your name from anything, and the Stack Exchange team will always honor that, but I don't believe an automated method for doing it benefits the community on any level.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Nov 8, 2014 at 16:53
  • Actually I think it's completely beneficial. I know users do not ask questions on stackoverflow because they think that question can be embarassing (while it would be very interesting). If the users know they can disassociate I think the entire community will benefit from that as many high rep users will start making new questions
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 17:03
  • @dynamic That sounds more like a request to be able to ask anonymous questions, which is a completely different beast which has been discussed many times before. Having a system to remove your name after-the-fact is not really a good way of solving that problem.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Nov 8, 2014 at 17:08

2 Answers 2

10

I don't think it is worth implementing. At least because I see no reason for it. Are some questions shameful for you because they are easy childish? If so, I'd say that everyone learns and doesn't know something at some point of time. Whats wrong with not knowing something? Even if you had fundamental misunderstanding how does something work.

I can't see any other reasons unfortunately. Having asked a few off-topic questions in the past won't shame you too, if you understood how to ask. If those questions doesn't have any historical significance, just flag it for moderator attention - I don't think they will leave completely off-topic and useless questions.

1
  • +1 altho I don't completly agree with you. I don't think the nickname under the question adds any other value to the question if the user don't want to be associated with the question
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 17:17
8

I don't support this feature request.

The question is not really whether the request here could be implemented but whether the benefits for the community would outweigh the costs. The software that powers SE is not designed for tracking reputation of posts that are no longer associated with an account. It would be costly to implement this. (I'm not a dev for SE so I'm basing this on what I've seen and from using SEDE. This is what the evidence tells me.)

On the other hand, dissociation should be a very rare event. There is no pressing need to make the operation easier to perform. And even if reputation would remain associated with those who want to remove their names from bad posts, it is still open to abuse. Right now, any user is able to see whether a user is engaging in repeated bad behavior by looking at the user's profile. I've found cases of spamming this way, and patterns of suspicious voting. If users can dissociate themselves at will, they could hide their tracks and make it harder for us to find such cases. A reputation cost of -1 for dissociation would not constitute enough of a cost for someone who sees greater benefits in other ways (e.g the spammer writes it off as an advertisement cost, and the sock puppet is giving a +10 to its intended target).

As for those who won't post for fear of embarrassment (this was raised in a comment), either their fears are unfounded, in which case they won't need to dissociate themselves from their post, or their fears are warranted. If their fears are warranted because they are about to post something of poor quality or that does not follow the rules of the site, then they should not post. If their fears are warranted because the post is of a sensitive nature (e.g. discussion of child abuse, spousal abuse, harassment, etc. on SE sites where such topic is appropriate), they can always create a new account and post anonymously. This is authorized so long as the anonymous account is not created to interact with the main account. Again, they don't need dissociation. (Dissociation would in fact leave them associated with the post at least for a little bit so I don't know why anyone in a sensitive situation like this would decide that dissociation is better than posting anonymously.) In all these cases, they don't need dissociation.

4
  • 3
    I don't think a spammer has more than 10k reputation on any stackexchange website, nor it would be hard to track those bad behavior. I simply don't get why deny the possibility to remove the nickname under a question if the user (a trusted user) wants without so many trouble
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 19:05
  • @dynamic First, in your proposal, you mention you are at over 10k but that's not enough to communicate that it would be a requirement to use the feature. (The comments clarify this but, well, important things like this belong in the question. You can't expect people to read comments very closely.) Second, yes, I've seen people with high rep (>= 10k) post spam. They post plugs for a project of theirs tangentially related to the questions they answer. It happens. As far as SE is concerned this is spam. It's not just the viagra stuff that qualifies as spam.
    – Louis
    Nov 8, 2014 at 19:12
  • that's right, I have clarified that a reputation should be required to access this feature in my question. To address your concern of spam, internally a moderator would still be able to see who is the original poster. Anyway +1 for your answer, that is polite and clear
    – dynamic
    Nov 8, 2014 at 19:14
  • Here's an interesting example of me asking a python newb question, then someone appearing to create a jerk-sounding username to shame(?) the post. I'm not sweating it, but miffs a bit. I bring it up because its a decent use-case for removing a post/disassociating it from a username. Again, petty? sure.
    – SeaDude
    Nov 1, 2020 at 18:53

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