I find it very annoying that you are not able to remove a question you posted even if it has a single answer that is of low quality or has been down voted. There are many questions that have been abandoned on the site which provide no useful content and should be able to be removed.
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3You can delete questions that have one < 0 scored answer. See also: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5221/…?– rene ModCommented Jan 15, 2021 at 5:38
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5@rene If the answer has been upvoted by someone, even if downvotes outweigh the upvote, the author can't delete the question.– Sonic the Anonymous HedgehogCommented Jan 15, 2021 at 5:54
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3@SonictheCuriouserHedgehog awesome point. So the annoyance of this OP stems from the 4516 questions on SO that can't be deleted due to that "quirk". We're optimizing for sand here. Oh, and an extra nitpick: I didn't take locked questions into account. The actual number of question that can't be deleted due to that upvote is probably even lower.– rene ModCommented Jan 15, 2021 at 6:45
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If you're so keen to delete it, flag it. Otherwise, no harm in leaving it around and who knows, new answers can always arrive, even years later.– Shadow WizardCommented Jan 15, 2021 at 7:12
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Arms length related questions: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/74466/… (duplicate question in a comment), meta.stackexchange.com/q/220097/282094 meta.stackexchange.com/a/182459/282094 meta.stackexchange.com/q/239525/282094 and math.meta.stackexchange.com/q/23744/510296 (exact duplicate on Math.meta.SE) or meta.stackoverflow.com/q/360056/3648282 (exact duplicate on meta Stack Overflow).– RobCommented Jan 15, 2021 at 9:54
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I think the downvotes on this question proves my point pretty well. There's no reason for downvote at all, and no explanation given.– PieCommented Jan 15, 2021 at 21:07
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1 Answer
Well - the person who posted the answer took some effort to answer, and a deletion of a well regarded answer deprives the commons of that particular artifact of knowledge.
While you may have the best of intentions - there's sometimes folks who'd be pretty happy to ask a question then delete immediately after they get a working answer, or to avoid downvotes. Its also a check against freeloading folks who'd take the work of others, but for some reason deprive the broader community of that work.
There are many questions that have been abandoned on the site which provide no useful content and should be able to be removed.
Citation needed. If a question is downvoted enough, it can be deleted by community, or a moderator could. The trick is working out which questions are not useful, and working out a community consensus on what needs to go, and figuring out a scalable way to deal with it. That's often difficult but its what's needed.
answered Jan 15, 2021 at 7:05
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So given that you were the only one to provide a answer, what is your take on the downvotes for a question with no reasoning. If a question is downvoted, how are others supposed to find it when the question doesn't get surfaced in search results as easy?– PieCommented Jan 15, 2021 at 21:08
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Why downvotes don't need a reason is fairly well discussed on meta. In theory, on a regular site, downvotes don't indicate disagreement, On meta they do. If I'm not mistaken, the community can delete posts, even with an upvoted answer, and mods certainly can. Its just not a choice for OP to make at that point– Journeyman Geek ModCommented Jan 16, 2021 at 2:19
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Well I appreciate you taking the time to answer. This question just reminds me how disappointed I am in the way the voting is handled here. I always wished that the votes would show a reason as to why it was voted in that manner, otherwise your left wondering. 🤷– PieCommented Jan 16, 2021 at 3:43