If I can't delete my own question, why ask us for permission to delete the question?

Question

So I tried deleting a question, my question. I'm not a mod, but I have reputation above 10k. I received this message after hitting delete, asking me to make sure I wanted to:

But after clicking Delete Question, I saw this:

It turns out that because the question has answers, I'm prohibited from deleting it. If I can't actually delete this question at all, could it just tell me immediately, and only show me the warning if I can actually delete it?

This is akin to the following analogy.

You see a flyer in your local paper stating there's a new burger shop opening. Great, you think to yourself, and rush over to get yourself some burgers. On your way into the parking lot, you see a huge banner proclaiming one of their newest burgers. You see some employees walk in and out of the restaurant, with T-Shirt with pictures of burgers on them. Great, you think to yourself, and walk in. You get in line, and after what seems like ages, you finally make it to the front. You look up at the menu. You see that they also sell sandwiches. No, you tell yourself, I'm looking for burgers. You see that they also sell burritos! No, you tell yourself, I'm looking for burgers. Then you see that they sell burgers. Great! You pick out a burger, then tell the employee at the register, "Sir, I'd like to get a regular burger please." Immediately, the employee looks up, with a quizzical look on his face, saying "Sir? We don't sell burgers here.".

It's the same situation. I've come to that prompt so that I can delete a question. After repeated messages and windows letting me know the consequences of deleting, what will happen after I have it deleted, I am told that the option of having it deleted by my own hand never existed in the first place.

Answer 1

could it just tell me immediately, and only show me the warning if I can actually delete it?

Imagine there is no first screen. What would be the user's reaction to the red pop-up? Oh, I should click "flag" instead of "delete" to get this deleted? Alright. And the moderators get another flag with "I got the answer already, please delete this." Moderators love those flags.

Some people have difficulty grasping that the answers they are given on SE sites are not for their use only. Removing the warning message would mean missing a teaching opportunity.

Answer 2

The two dialogs are different things:

The first is a warning people should read anyway, just to get to know how we feel about what one is trying to do. This is even different for those who are question banned, and nicely links to additional information. Also, this dialog is the confirmation step that avoids deletion on accidental clicks.

Next, when continuing, it's not always impossible to delete an answered question: it's still possible if there's only one answer with zero score.

The second is the result of the server side validation when trying to execute the action. This would be required anyway, as meanwhile things can have changed. So there is no way to never get the second after seeing the first.

Sure, technically one could still try to suppress the first (and not let people know how we feel about it, and not link to those resources), but that is not worth any development efforts, I feel. Deleting an answered question should rarely happen, so only the few who persist in trying it, would see that warning a lot of times anyway. Suppressing it would also require a different text for the error message; when the fancy deletion prompt was implemented, Shog9 wrote about that error:

But you won't find out about that restriction until you've clicked through this [the first] message. So hopefully this will not only reduce the number of jackasses deleting their questions the second someone posts an answer, but also the number of moderator flags begging for such deletions.

Answer 3

If this workflow was intentional, as Adam Lear's comment implies, then the first dialogue box should at least warn users that they may not actually be allowed to delete their question. If I click a box that says "Delete question" after reading the explanation, I expect the question to delete. Surprising me with a red banner that chastises me for trying seems...kinda rude.

Adding something to the text of the first popup that reads:

In some cases, you may be prevented from deleting your question. For more information see the FAQ.

This or something like it will hint to the user that their deletion may not succeed.

Sure, users don't always read the text, but if they try a second time, they might read it then and see the FAQ link.