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Some keep deleting questions with a lot of discussion, both relevant and/or historical, and we can't search on deleted questions. Some of them are locked so that they cannot be undeleted, so I'm putting this question out, for links to be posted, so that those 10ks who want to find them in the future can. I think topical will be the best way to organize it.

What is a Community without History?

See also https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/73455/popular-deleted-questions-list for deleted questions on other sites (for 10k users)

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25
  • 3
    Do deleted posts show up in the data dump? This seems like a spectacularly bad way to solve this problem
    – Michael Mrozek
    Aug 16, 2010 at 16:50
  • 2
    @Michael: no, they don't. Not unless they managed to not be deleted when the data was dumped.
    – Shog9
    Aug 16, 2010 at 16:51
  • @Michael, there's always the possibility a question was asked late in a month and not deleted until the beginning of the next month....
    – Pops
    Aug 16, 2010 at 18:27
  • 14
    Now I want to read all these, and I can't :(
    – Michael Mrozek
    Aug 16, 2010 at 21:52
  • 1
    @Michael, that's called motivation. You should save the link to this question in case they delete it.
    – Lance Roberts
    Aug 16, 2010 at 22:23
  • 2
    Yet another spark to feed the flame war...
    – Ivo Flipse
    Aug 17, 2010 at 16:44
  • 7
    @Ivo, I don't really want flame wars, I just want to keep aware of context and history, this would all be meaningless if they would just implement 'isdeleted' for 10ks.
    – Lance Roberts
    Aug 17, 2010 at 17:05
  • 4
    @devinb is no fun (see edits).
    – user27414
    Aug 18, 2010 at 15:56
  • 6
    What would happen if I deleted the 'Deleted Questions Archive'?
    – Ivo Flipse
    Mar 28, 2011 at 22:15
  • 2
    @Ivo, that would truly suck, at a black hole level.
    – Lance Roberts
    Mar 28, 2011 at 23:14
  • 5
    @Ivo To our luck, we already have it in the Archives for when that happens
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Apr 13, 2011 at 18:58
  • 3
    For users under 10k, I've written a user script that will allow you to see view many of these questions, though not their answers. Read more or install it from Stack Apps.
    – Jeremy
    Aug 30, 2011 at 6:38
  • 2
    @Shog9 so they won't show up in data dump? Huh?! Why?! (what good is an incomplete dump?!)
    – n611x007
    Jun 30, 2012 at 18:28
  • 1
    @Lix The linked question was what prompted the rename. I believe that all the questions linked directly in this question are on meta, while the ones in the (newly renamed) Popular Deleted SO/SU/Programmers Questions list are linking to non-meta sites. Having "Deleted Questions Archive" and "Popular Deleted Questions List" without further disambiguation seemed wrong.
    – blahdiblah
    Oct 8, 2012 at 21:51
  • 2
    Surely the existance of this archive suggests there is demand to be able to search on deleted questions
    – Richard Tingle
    Oct 7, 2013 at 18:17

13 Answers 13

Reset to default
22

BUGS to be swept under the rug

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  • 5
    FWIW, I love it that the first question involves the envelope not working properly, and the last involves it being removed...
    – Shog9
    Mar 15, 2011 at 17:48
  • @Shog, I hope people don't go up in arms about the 'EEk' question being deleted. It was asked at a time when the functionality of the new feature was not 100% there and doesn't represent things as they are now.
    – jjnguy
    Mar 15, 2011 at 17:55
  • 8
    @jinguy, There's no really good excuse to them deleting discussion questions like that. The discussion will always be valid, even if things change.
    – Lance Roberts
    Mar 15, 2011 at 17:57
  • 4
    @Lance, that question can be confusing. If someone ends up finding it, it contains lots of mis-information now.
    – jjnguy
    Mar 15, 2011 at 18:03
  • 15
    @jjnguy: there is still no link to users/recent, therefore the Eeeek bug report is still accurate. The only confusing thing here is why the powers-that-be think deleting massively-upvoted questions is ever a good idea. Closed, yes. Locked, if you must. But deleted = let's pretend this never happened = way more harm than any question could ever hope to wreak.
    – Marti
    Mar 15, 2011 at 18:22
  • @Marti, that bug report does still have some valid information. I agree. However, it is filled with people complaining that they are missing features that are actually there now.
    – jjnguy
    Mar 15, 2011 at 18:32
  • 5
    @jjn: Is that not precisely what the "Too Localized" close reason is for? Why delete it?
    – Aarobot
    Mar 15, 2011 at 20:29
  • @Aarobot, because Jeff felt it would do more harm than good by being around I guess. I can't claim to know why he deleted it for sure. I just don't think it's a bad thing.
    – jjnguy
    Mar 15, 2011 at 20:44
  • 4
    @jin, realize that one of the consequences of deleting it, like a lot of deletions, is that now anyone else looking for an answer has a greater chance of creating a duplicate. One of the reasons that we try not to delete much.
    – Lance Roberts
    Mar 15, 2011 at 20:48
  • 9
    @Lance: Not to mention that a bunch of other questions already closed as duplicates are now going to be linking to a 404 for the majority of users.
    – Aarobot
    Mar 15, 2011 at 21:02
  • @Shog9: Of course, would the original complaint about the envelope not working be still accessible, it would be a good place to point all those to who now complain about it being missing. (Note that I'm not saying that would invalidate the latter, but that it would be a valid and helpful tool in discussing things.)
    – sbi
    Mar 16, 2011 at 9:55
  • @sbi: did you try clicking on it? It was undeleted a few months ago...
    – Shog9
    Mar 16, 2011 at 15:29
  • @Shog9: No, I hadn't tried, thanks for pointing it out. But it doesn't change my argument: deleting discussions deletes helpful tools in discussions. And I was discussion deletion, not the envelop icon.
    – sbi
    Mar 16, 2011 at 19:10
  • @sbi: I agree, just pointing out the current status of that post.
    – Shog9
    Mar 16, 2011 at 20:49
  • 1
    @jin, one of the problems with them deleting the Eeeek question is that now people can't get the GM script that gave them back the envelope. I'm fortunate that I'm over 10k here, and posted this link, so that I could get it today when I was on a new machine. It really has so much more functionality than the dropdown.
    – Lance Roberts
    Mar 18, 2011 at 17:16
20

Discussing Deleted Posts

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  • 10
    The first rule of deleted questions... ;)
    – gnostradamus
    Aug 16, 2010 at 16:55
  • 25
    (-1) for recursion (see my next comment)
    – devinb
    Aug 16, 2010 at 17:03
  • 25
    (-1) for recursion (see my previous comment)
    – devinb
    Aug 16, 2010 at 17:04
  • +1 for not actually making those numbers mean anything...
    – Shog9
    Aug 16, 2010 at 17:04
  • 5
    Wait, are you suggesting that this question will be deleted?
    – Maxim Zaslavsky
    Aug 16, 2010 at 17:20
  • 4
    @Maxim, it seems inevitable.
    – Lance Roberts
    Aug 16, 2010 at 17:45
  • 17
    @devinb That's not recursion, that's an infinite loop. See this comment for actual recursion. :P
    – deceze
    Oct 7, 2011 at 4:57
  • 1
    Someone voted up the second comment, but not the third, so I had to do the opposite. See here for reference: youtu.be/ussCHoQttyQ
    – Fabian Röling
    Oct 23, 2017 at 11:57
14

Banning/Suspension

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  • 3
    Really? That was deleted? Why?
    – Andreas Bonini
    Aug 16, 2010 at 17:12
  • 2
    @Kop - it stayed quiet for a couple of days, and then a new participant showed up and it got a little ugly. I suspect some private emails went back and forth before Jeff deleted it.
    – user27414
    Aug 17, 2010 at 16:48
  • 1
    @Kop: It's not only deleted, but locked as well.
    – Jon Seigel
    Aug 17, 2010 at 16:58
12

Undesirable Behaviour/Users

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  • 15
    More like threads where Jeff screwed up and deleted it to hide the truth, am I right?
    – Welbog
    Aug 16, 2010 at 19:42
  • 6
    I'm dying to see the contents of "SO will never be the source of the information and enlightening." It looks like a treasure trove of abject whining and broken English.
    – Aarobot
    Sep 13, 2010 at 16:09
10

Feature Requests

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  • 1
    I Protest! Eeeek is and always has been a bug report. Hmph. (Sniff. I miss my Eeeek.)
    – Marti
    Mar 15, 2011 at 17:30
  • @Marti, I agree with you, just forgot about that. I'll move it.
    – Lance Roberts
    Mar 15, 2011 at 17:36
  • @LanceRoberts They just deleted the feature request about seeing deleted content? That's probably my fault, I left a comment on Jeff's answer there yesterday (I believe). Do you know if there is a canonical answer out there in re: seeing our own deleted posts?
    – agf
    Oct 7, 2011 at 4:29
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    @agf, yep, one of Jeff's most downvoted answers, another related good link is here.
    – Lance Roberts
    Oct 7, 2011 at 4:35
  • @LanceRoberts Thanks, I guess I've seen that but forgot, I only had the just-deleted one favorited.
    – agf
    Oct 7, 2011 at 4:40
6

Users Departing Voluntarily

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2
  • the text of that was copied to his user profile.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Oct 23, 2010 at 10:31
  • ... hence here, I guess?
    – Arjan
    Dec 14, 2010 at 20:44
4

Approaching Deletion

(This is for questions that have a lot of delete votes. It's hard to track them down after they're deleted. After they are deleted, they can be moved to other answers here.)

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-1

Badge Requests

(So now we're deleting Badge Requests, this first one sucks but it's unique.)

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  • 14
    yet again, OP asked for it to be deleted. Or, y'know, GLOBAL CONSPIRACY BY THE MAN.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Sep 12, 2011 at 8:05

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