Hide deleted answers with certain characteristics

Question

Today I exceeded 10K reputation on Stack Overflow, and I see deleted answers. I am now faced with pages like Convert HTML to PDF in .NET where half the answers are "deleted."

Among these are many non-answers deleted by diamond moderators, and a self-deleted answer deleted on Nov 25 '09. I find this very distracting, especially in my chosen sort order of "oldest" where these deleted answers are NOT displayed at the bottom.

I wish to be able to hide deleted answers based on combinations of characteristics such as:

• age since deletion
• deleted-by-owner
• deleted by diamond moderators
• zero undelete votes

This would be a setting every user could enable for himself.

---

Here are HTML excerpts that may be useful for userscript filtering.

This shows the code that appears for a moderator deletion, as well as the date stamp.

<div class="deleted-answer-info">deleted by <a href="/users/10936/dori">Dori</a><span class="mod-flair" title="moderator">♦</span> <span title="2011-06-26 09:13:34Z" class="relativetime">Jun 26 at 9:13</span></div>

Here is the same class for deleted by owner:

<div class="deleted-answer-info">deleted by owner <span title="2009-11-25 19:12:11Z" class="relativetime">Nov 25 '09 at 19:12</span></div>

Answer 1

One of the things that I didn't like about reaching 10k was that my clean, neat interface was now cluttered with trash.

What happens when you're a 10k user who doesn't want to participate in moderation? Your experience on StackOverflow (which we moderators, 10k and diamonds, and other diligent users of SO put much effort into making so nice!) is now ruined. All the crap that is cleared out to make that experience so unique is now dumped right in your lap.

I'd suggest that there should be the ability for high-rep users to say, "thanks, but no thanks" to some of the "features" of being a high-rep user. I think that not wanting to see deleted trash would be first among them.

In other words, let the little mole^{youtube link} take off his spectacles so that this

will look like this again

Answer 2

Here's a script which hides answers deleted by their owners or by mods over 30 days ago, and hides all deleted posts which were deleted over 90 days ago:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           So Delete Me
// @namespace      http://josh.gitlin.name/javascripts
// @description    Hide deleted posts with certain characteristics
// @version        1.0
// @include        http://stackoverflow.com/*
// ==/UserScript==

var script = document.createElement("script");
script.textContent = "(" + grease.toString() + ")()";
document.body.appendChild(script);

function grease()
{
    var hidePostsOlderThan = 3 * 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000; // Rough approximation of 3 months in miliseconds
    var hideModOwnerPostsOlderThan = 1 * 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000; // Rough approximation of 3 months in miliseconds
    
    hideModOwnerPostsOlderThan = 5 * 60 * 60 * 1000; // 5 hours in miliseconds
    
    var now = new Date();
    
    $('div.deleted-answer').filter(function(){
        var deletedAnswerInfo= $('div.deleted-answer-info',this);
        var deletedByOwner = deletedAnswerInfo[0].innerHTML.match(/deleted by owner/);
        var deletedByMod = deletedAnswerInfo[0].innerHTML.match(/deleted by.*moderator/);
        
        var dateParts=$('div.deleted-answer-info span',this)[0].title.match(/([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+) ([0-9]+):([0-9]+):([0-9]+)(.)/);
        
        var deletedAt = new Date(dateParts[1],parseInt(dateParts[2])-1,dateParts[3],dateParts[4],dateParts[5],dateParts[6],0);
        
        var deletedAge = now - deletedAt;
        
        return (deletedAge >= hidePostsOlderThan) || ( (deletedByOwner || deletedByMod) && deletedAge >= hideModOwnerPostsOlderThan);
    }).hide();
}

Link to install into Google Chrome / Greasemonkey

I do not have 10K so I cannot test this script thoroughly. But it seems to work with a self-deleted answer. I just reached 10K on Meta Stack Exchange.

Answer 3

Simple answer, AdBlock Plus can block this element: stackoverflow.com##.answer.deleted-answer. That's a bit of brute force and removes them all.

You can also use this TamperMonkey script with some help from jQuery to hide just the deleted by owner stuff:

// ==UserScript==
// @name         stackoverflow tampering
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      0.1
// @description  StackOverflow - hide #hot-network-questions and deleted stuff.
// @author       mattmc3
// @grant        none
// @require http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js
// @match https://*.stackoverflow.com
// @match https://*.stackexchange.com
// ==/UserScript==
$(document).ready(function() {
  // hide just 'deleted by owner'
  $('.answer.deleted-answer:contains("deleted by owner"').hide();

  // or, hide all deleted answers
  // $('.answer.deleted-answer').hide();

  // you can hide other stuff too
  $('#hot-network-questions').hide();
});

Answer 4

Regardless of the criteria for hiding, there should be a "Show x deleted answers" link where the hidden answers would have been.

That would make the answers readily available if a comment or the like prompts you to look at the deleted answers, but would avoid the clutter in the common case of just getting your work done.