Sometimes "user was removed" is less secret than others?

Question

Yesterday, I had an accepted answer removed on this question (10K), due to the question being removed.

It seems clear that the user was removed.

How did I track this down? Well, my reputation tab shows the following:

Usually, this is much more generic, without any clues to which post was removed (and I thought this was by design):

After an exchange in chat, I was curious if the rules about disclosure had changed. I discovered two interesting things:

1. Another user, Gordon Linoff, also had an upvoted answer removed from that question. Curious to see if I could see that result in his reputation tab, I found no evidence of the removal - even though, since I'm 10K, I could get that information from the question.

2. The policy hasn't changed overall, since yet another user, bluefeet, had a post removed yesterday, seemingly for the same reason, but I can see that evidence in her reputation tab - in fact, the second screen shot above is from her rep history.

So, my question, naturally, is why was the deleted post (and removed user) exposed to me, but not to bluefeet?

Other than curiosity, I don't think there really is any benefit to exposing to me which user was removed and which post(s) affected my reputation, but I am curious nonetheless about why this happens in some cases but not others, and why some removals on the rep tab are visible to other users, but apparently not when the post is identified.

Answer 1

The difference is between user removal and post removal.

When a user is removed, the votes that the removed user cast are nullified (except, iirc, if it was a very active user, the votes remain, since removing them would have too much impact, and allow inferring his/her voting pattern).

Such reputation events are public (as witnessed in bluefeet's profile), but neither the profile owner, nor anybody else [except maybe diamonds] can see which posts were affected.

A post removal on the other hand (as is shown in the screenshot from your profile), and the associated reputation change is not public. Only the affected user (and diamonds, as far as I know) can see it in the profile. That's why you (and I) can't see the question removal that sparked this question in Gordon Linoff's profile. I can't see it in yours either:

I can see three user was removed events in Gordon's profile on Jun 15^th, and one in yours on May 5^th. But of course no post-removal events.

The question in question was indeed removed because the OP's account was deleted. In such an event, the removed user's posts with a negative score are automatically removed some time later (not sure how frequently that job is run).

But the removal of the user and the removal of his/her posts are separate events, usually days or even weeks apart, and are listed separately on the reputation tab.

Answer 2

Here’s what likely happened:

1. A user, let’s say “Foobar”, posted a question
2. Aaron posted an answer
3. Gordon posted an answer
4. Foobar up-voted Aaron’s and Gordon’s answers
5. Foobar accepted Aaron’s answer and, having accomplished their goal, left
6. bluefeet posted an answer
7. Someone else, let’s say “Baz”, up-voted bluefeet’s answer
8. Later, Foobar was deleted
9. Foobar’s posts are deleted, including the question, um, in question, and everybody’s answers to it
10. Reputation is updated from removal of Foobar’s question and its answers:
    • Aaron lost 15 from losing Foobar’s up-vote and accept
    • Gordon lost 10 from losing Foobar’s up-vote
    • bluefeet lost 10 from Baz’s up-vote
11. Rep-change messages are posted to profiles:
    • Aaron sees Your post was deleted: Foobar’s removal directly affected Aaron’s post
    • Gordon sees Your post was deleted: Foobar’s removal directly affected Gordon’s post
    • bluefeet sees User was removed: Foobar indirectly affected bluefeet’s post (Baz still exists)

This is indeed confusing because bluefeet sees a message saying that a user was removed, but Baz was not removed; their vote was removed because bluefeet’s answer was removed because Foobar was removed. I tried considering it the other way around where Baz voted for Aaron and Gordon and Foobar voted for bluefeet, but that made even less sense.

This version fits the events (knowing for sure would require an SE dev with access to the code), but it highlights the ambiguity of the wording of the message. Though to be honest, it doesn’t really matter in the end; a user was removed which had a cascade effect that ultimately cost or gained you some reputation. What does it matter which user or even which post was affected? The reputation change had nothing to do with you or other users that voted for your post, it was due only to the user that was removed, and so there is no action for you to take.