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How can someone make an appeal to undelete an answer that was deleted by a moderator?

There should at least be an appeal/vote process, if the deletion was unfair. Moderators are humans like rest of us, and they can be unjust.

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    There is such a place to appeal that decision, and you've already found it: the Meta site. Update your question to include a link to the deleted answer. Mar 16, 2012 at 6:09
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    I don't think the idea of a formal "appeal" by the questioner really makes much sense -- it would be abused so often because people don't like when their answers are deleted; and frankly, the way you worded your question just sounds like you are in that category of people that don't like that their question was deleted. I agree with @Cody Gray that if you legitimately take issue with a moderator's decision and aren't just miffed that your question got deleted, ask about it here on meta.
    – Ben Lee
    Mar 16, 2012 at 6:09
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    On the other hand, I don't like the fact that a moderator's delete vote is final and no undelete votes can be cast by non-moderators after a moderator has deleted a question, even if they have enough rep to otherwise cast undelete votes. But that's really a separate issue (and I can see some value in both ways -- moderator finality prevents delete/undelete wars and other unstable disagreements). But I see no value in offering a formal appeal process.
    – Ben Lee
    Mar 16, 2012 at 6:11
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    @BenLee - I really doubt that the appeal functionality "would be abused so often" if it was properly situated(i.e., don't add a big link right after the question is deleted, and make the appeal-link somewhere a few links away). Mar 16, 2012 at 6:15
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    Seems to me that this post is just different enough from the suggested dupes that it shouldn't be closed. On the other hand, Tim's gave a great authoritative answer, so... not going to bother with a reopen effort.
    – Pops
    Mar 16, 2012 at 15:04
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    Re-opening this because it's a specific question and the duplicates don't match.
    – Shog9
    Mar 16, 2012 at 16:30

1 Answer 1

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Flag your answer as 'in need of moderator intervention' and type 'I would like a different moderator to review this deletion'.

If the reviewing mod agrees with the action the first moderator took, we'll decline your flag with a short explanation that you'll be able to read on your flag summary page.

We can't possibly entertain appeals for the thousands of answers that are deleted every day, meta would just explode. The flag system is definitely the best starting point.

If after that, you're still not satisfied, bring up the topic in the per-site meta. (but be much more specific, e.g. actually link to the answer).

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    Note, due to our flag volume increasing on an extremely consistent scale, it may take one or two days for your flag to be processed. Sorry about that, but you'll have to be patient.
    – Tim Post
    Mar 16, 2012 at 6:46

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