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When I have asked a question that was not received well and we not only got a close request because the question has already been asked before, but

  • for some reason got it downvoted
  • we got it criticised

there is an urge to delete the question.

However if someone also posted an answer on it, we get a warning that future readers will not be able to read that two lines of an answer we got, maybe even misspelled. The quality could be less than measureable.

This is the warning

enter image description here

When we then press the "delete question" button, the warning message is now an error message

enter image description here

We can all have different opinions in what time investment is, but to conclude that an answer placed a couple of minutes ago automatically is an "effort" is wrong.

Please let me delete my own question. Especially if was asked within the last hour.

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  • 5
    Also deletion counts against your ability to ask questions.
    – Luuklag
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:29
  • The fact that I want to filter my own badly placed questions should make it even more possible for me to ask questions. Responsible behaviour should be honored.
    – Anders Lindén
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:31
  • You can flag it and ask to disassociate the question from your account. This way nobody will know who posted it, and you won't have any "bad mark" on your profile. However mods might reject the flag as "I don't want to get downvotes" might not be good enough reason to ask for them to intervene.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:40
  • @Luuklag not here, well at least here the post ban criteria is very relaxed, so less relevant, but in general you're correct.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:45
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    But I will still be the person responsible for the existence of the question. I do not care if anyone knows who posted it. I want to keep the site clean from my mistakes.
    – Anders Lindén
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:46
  • You did downvote the answer, right? And you didn't accept it, right? Is the answer < 0?
    – rene
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:47
  • 2
    @AndersLindén that's the whole point: it is not a mistake. Downvotes are integral and essential part of Stack Exchange. Getting them does not mean you made any mistake.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:47
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    No, but the fact that I want to remove a question that I placed an hour ago signifies a mistake.
    – Anders Lindén
    Jul 3, 2022 at 11:48
  • 2
    @AndersLindén or it signifies that you don't want downvotes. Which is probably the most common reason for wanting to delete a post.
    – Esther
    Jul 4, 2022 at 15:31
  • I am sorry to upset people by writing this posting, but it is not a duplicate of anything I have seen this far. The treatment it got is a duplicate of treatments of other postings however.
    – Anders Lindén
    Jul 5, 2022 at 21:49
  • The number of downvotes on this question is worrying. We all strive against the same goal, are we not?
    – Anders Lindén
    Jan 25 at 8:02
  • 1
    No it's not worrying at all. People are free to disagree with you, and if you're not fine with that, that's a problem.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jan 25 at 8:29
  • The possibility to delete your own question should be a right. On all platforms, everywhere. I do not deserve that many downvotes for having that opinion. Also, the suggestion that this already got an answer (to my opinion) is incorrect.
    – Anders Lindén
    Jan 25 at 13:09
  • 2
    I agree that it's not a duplicate, reopened. It's a valid feature request, and note that several users did agree with it and upvoted, your net gain from the question should even be positive. Sorry that you can't understand the idea of votes though and how they work on Stack Exchange. (Instead, you consider downvotes as something bad that you don't "deserve" - that is just incorrect.)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jan 25 at 13:27

1 Answer 1

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To a significant extent - that things get disagreed with (and a downvote on meta is a disagreement) is part of how the site works. The system doesn't really differentiate between a 'quick' answer and a slow one.

Looking at the votes - there's 2 downvotes and one upvote at the time of the posting so, it's not... particularly negative. I don't see any close votes (I posted a comment pointing out a relevant official post).

And well - someone did spend time writing an answer, drawing on their experiences on the site. It's a practical problem that folks face, and if it were closed as a duplicate, it would act as a signpost to the main question.

I wouldn't look positively at a request to delete the question because it's not a bad question or a useless one. Two people disagree, sure but I'm not sure that counts. One person's bookmarked it so they're interested in how it turns out.

Fundamentally - I'm disinclined to delete it because there's no good reason to delete it.

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  • I am talking about questions in general, and the question I want to delete is on stackoverflow. You cannot tell about the amount of devotion someone put in the answer, can you?
    – Anders Lindén
    Jul 3, 2022 at 12:19
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    @AndersLindén you posted this question shortly after asking to delete your previous question here, so it's very natural to assume you were talking about that question. You also clearly told in comments there (now deleted) that you want to delete because it has close votes. You could have made it all more clear by linking to your question on SO that you want to be deleted, as example.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Jul 3, 2022 at 15:25

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