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I'm looking at the revision history for this question, which was closed as off-topic a few days ago. Just a few minutes ago, the OP radically revised it; it doesn't even resemble the original question anymore. In fact, the two versions only share about seven words and some punctuation. Here's a screenshot of the most recent revision:

enter image description here

So, the question for the community is this: Is this proper, or should it be rolled back?

Edit: I went ahead and rolled it back because it has a couple of answers already (responding to the old version). But I would still like to know the community consensus on this.

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15
  • 8
    50 rep says the user is question banned.
    – Mysticial
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:23
  • 2
    roll back. ${}$
    – John Dvorak
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:24
  • @Mysticial That seems likely, but I'm not at 10k yet, so I can't see.
    – elixenide
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:24
  • 3
    If the question has answers; roll back. If not; meh
    – Richard Tingle
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:24
  • 1
    @Ed 10kers can't see Q-bans either. Thats mod only
    – Richard Tingle
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:25
  • wait, does he really think this will get reopened and answered?
    – John Dvorak
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:25
  • @RichardTingle Ah, good to know.
    – elixenide
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:25
  • Rolled back now.
    – John Dvorak
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:26
  • 1
    Related: What to do with questions that had their content erased? (I think that removal of the original question counts as erasure of content.)
    – michaelb958--GoFundMonica
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:28
  • If you get involved in a rollback war with the original poster, then flag for moderator action (although I believe that several successive rollbacks automatically trigger the mods), and they may lock the question if they see fit to do so.
    – Hovercraft Full Of Eels
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:56
  • 1
    @Mysticial Just looked at the OP's rep. 100% of OP's activity until the last hour was on March 12: 3 questions, 2 of which got closed, and which collectively have a total of 12 downvotes so far. So, yeah, question-ban seems pretty likely.
    – elixenide
    Mar 16, 2014 at 23:01
  • meta.stackexchange.com/questions/43478/…
    – Mp0int
    Mar 16, 2014 at 23:12
  • 1
    It has also happened to this question.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Mar 16, 2014 at 23:23
  • 1
    @PeterMortensen Yep, same user, same (new) question. Sigh...
    – elixenide
    Mar 16, 2014 at 23:42
  • 4
    Yup, they were blocked from asking new questions two hours ago, at which point they decided to work around this by replacing one of their existing questions with this. If there are answers targeting the original question, don't hesitate to roll it back.
    – Brad Larson
    Mar 17, 2014 at 0:06

1 Answer 1

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12

A general rule I follow is "is this action harming the community or the internet in general".

If there are answers then the question is undoubtedly yes. It harms the community because it destroys other people's work and it harms the internet because good answers are effectively removed (or no longer make sense). Roll these back with deadly force.

If this decends into a rollback war then flag for moderator attention using "other"

If there are no answers currently then it doesn't really matter, no one else's answers are invalidated so; meh, not ideal but nothing really wrong with it.

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1
  • Accepted because (1) this matches my own thinking perfectly, (2) it was pretty quick, and (3) it represents the consensus that was forming in the comments. Thanks.
    – elixenide
    Mar 16, 2014 at 22:48

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