Deletion by someone outside the community

Question

Note that I have posted this in the SE Meta rather than the Spanish Meta with prompting from one of the Spanish moderators after I complained about it. His suggestion was the following:

Mi recomendación como usuario es publicar en meta, con pantallazo incluido, y preguntar por qué, aparentemente, alguien que no modera en Spanish.Se está moderando Spanish.Se. Y que de explicaciones (si piensas que te deben explicaciones) quien deba darlas

My recommendation as a user is to publish in meta, with screencap included, and ask why, apparently, someone who does not moderate in Spanish.SE is moderating Spanish.SE. And for whoever ought to explain it to explain it (if you think they owe you explanations)

I had an answer that was deleted by a non-Spanish.SE moderator (well, they¹ has a diamond, but it seems purely by virtue of being an employee, their reputation is only 101).

The link provided says that my answer was deleted for one of the following reasons:

• commentary on the question or other answers
• asking another, different question
• “thanks!” or “me too!” responses
• exact duplicates of other answers
• barely more than a link to an external site
• not even a partial answer to the actual question

However, my answer was a complete answer, with commentary explaining it. I am the #3 user in Spanish.SE by reputation, I'm fairly certain I know what an acceptable answer is, and I can't for the life of me understand why this answer was (a) considered for deletion, (b) deleted unilaterally without any previous warning or explanation, and, most importantly, (c) by a person who has zero experience in Spanish.SE. Animuson in the comments suggests it could be from the language involved (although Spanish.SE is no stranger to foul language, being, of course, a language-based site — something acknowledged by the person who asked the question who is themself a mod), but that was not one of the reasons provided for the answer being deleted, and in fact after removing it and flagging it to be undeleted, it was not undeleted (but the flag was cleared from the queue, as I am able to flag it again). In any case, the question remains:

Is this standard practice (and if so, should it be?) for moderators to randomly enter SE's that they have no experience in and determine that and determine that an answer is, by their judgment, to be deleted, despite not fitting any of the rationales above?

I can understand spam answers, or blatant harassment/abuse receiving such treatment. In Spanish.SE, our moderators have, even when they could do instantly delete something, tended to provide feedback first and only deleting if an answer is never editted. And when they do instantly delete, they also provide a fairly explicit rationale as to what is wrong and what would need to be done to improve it, something I have not gotten.

Here is the screenshot of the post. Notice that the text above the HR is mine, and the text below is a loose translation provided by a different user (not me), and uses decidedly stronger language than mine. (the verb sudársela in Spanish means to "to not be important" and close to the English expression it's no sweat, although fairly more colloquial). The Spanish.SE didn't have any problem with it, so it seems odd for an outside moderator to jump in and decide what is considered an on topic or complete answer.

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^{1. I do not know JNat's preferred pronoun, and will gladly edit this post accordingly if told.}

^{2. The answer was not restored after adjusting the language (the flag was seen, and no action was taken to restore the answer).}

Answer 1

You already got a bit of context from the comments as to why I deleted the answer. Two things worth clearing up:

• Yours wasn't the only answer I deleted;
• The first thing I did before touching any of the posts was to hop into a chat room with the site's mods, to talk about how to approach the post. I saw this was a recurrent event for y'all, so thought it'd be best to get some context beforehand. Furthermore, as a non-native English speaker, I'm also sensitive to the stuff that can get lost in translation.

I determined that, despite the choice of a sensitive topic in a sensitive time, letting y'all vent in a humorous way might be better than stomping on it. So me and the moderators deliberated that the clearly offensive or "Meta discussion-y" answers, at least, had no place there — which even lead to a warning at the top of the question, saying so. The mods left a comment, and I deleted the answers — these actions were done in tandem.

As you pointed out, the translation into Spanish itself had no problems — it was the translation back into English that was the offending bit. I didn't pick up on that, but you subsequently corrected it.

I have, in the meantime, talked with the mods again: I trust them to be able to moderate the post on their own. That means I deferred to them on whether to undelete the answer or not, based on your edit (they've since undeleted it). It also means I trust them to be able to delete the answers that don't abide by the "strictly language proficiency show-off" rule at the top of the question.