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Possible Duplicate:
Why do I have to ‘vote to delete’ my own answer?

In Stack Overflow, I posted an answer, and as soon as I posted that I realized that my answer was not correct. I could edit and correct my answer, but I saw that if I modified my answer it becomes similar to another answer.

So I wanted to delete my answer.

But I found that I can only "vote to delete" instead of delete. I have two questions.

  1. Why I am not allowed to delete my own post by myself?
  2. Until my post is deleted, can others still see it as an answer to the question?
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  • Where's the link to your post? It's a good idea to always include that in your question so we aren't just speculating.
    – jmort253
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 4:06
  • interesting that it asks the answerer to vote. either way the answers below are very much correct.
    – d-_-b
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 4:14

2 Answers 2

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Are you sure you're not just confused by the popup? When you click the popup, it should say:

Vote to delete this post?

By all means, any form of deletion is a "vote for deletion". However, you being the owner of the answer, you have a binding vote for deletion, which means you are the only one that needs to vote to delete the answer in order for it to be deleted (hence you're deleting it).

If you confirm in that popup, the answer should be immediately deleted.

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  • So after I voted to delete can others still see it among other answers?
    – prageeth
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 4:19
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    Users with more than 10,000 reputation can still see the deleted answers, but it will have a red background to indicate it's deleted, and will be pushed to the bottom of all other answers. As well, it can no longer be voted or commented upon.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 4:22
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You are allowed to delete your own post, you simply vote to delete it, and your delete vote is binding.

It's called "voting to delete" simply because other users can vote to delete your post, and it generally takes three 20K users on a negatively scored post, or a diamond moderator, to delete an answer. There's no need to completely change the UI for this, since "vote to delete your post" seems to work for most people. :)

Once you've voted to delete your post, it is deleted, and when a post is deleted, it's only visible to 10K users, diamond moderators, and some Stack Exchange employees.

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  • What do you mean by "Once your post is deleted"? It means "after I voted to delete" or "after deleted"?
    – prageeth
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 4:17
  • I assume you didn't actually vote to delete your post. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be asking this. ;) Think of it like an election where you're actually a dictator. Your vote is an overriding vote, so if you say "I vote to delete my post!" your post is instantly deleted. In fact, I'd say this isn't really voting, since your action is binding, meaning your vote counts as 100%. I edited the last paragraph to help clear up any confusion.
    – jmort253
    Commented Jan 2, 2013 at 4:49

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