Why do users vandalise their own answers?

Question

I have just reached 10k and started to review flags.

I have seen at least 3 flags like

possible vandalism of own posts; deletion in short time
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why do these users vandalise their own posts? Can somebody give me an example why would they do that?

Answer 1

It depends on the context; sometimes (usually, perhaps) it is simply users checking on a few answers and removing posts that have faults (maybe someone has noted flaws in comments, and better answers exist).

Sometimes it is a rage-quit; that is the real reason there is an automatic flag if the system spots this pattern. If people want to leave, that is up to them -but we'd prefer it if they didn't damage their answers in the process. We spot mass edits for similar reasons.

Answer 2

It is difficult to interpret the actions of users without speaking to them, so there can be any number of reasons for this:

• Users decide they don't want to participate in the site any more and decide to delete their content instead of using the correct route to account deletion.
• A user gets negatively voted on some of their questions/answers and decides to lash out at the site.
• Occasionally it isn't vandalism, they are just pruning what they consider bad questions/answers, even if the community might find them useful.