-4

Is there an actual rule that says a person that created a post is not allowed to delete it as long as it is marked as a duplicate?

If the answer is yes then you should change the system, so the delete button under the post should be deactivated after the post has been marked as a duplicate.

If not, then I can assume that my post was un-deleted twice by a moderator without a legitimate reason?

8
  • 2
    Nope, there's no such rule. Did you see my comments at the end of your post? I think you should be allowed to delete that post, personally.
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 6:43
  • @anaranjada I actually did read them all before i made this post... And to be hounest, if this is the case I will go after Null because what he did was bullying and excessive use of his powers. Also, i didnt want to delete the post just to get the points back, who cares about 8 points, i just wanted to delete it so i would close the matter then, and that we wouldnt continue that discussion, because it would lead to nowhere, but obviously Null didnt want to, so he actually forced me into doing everything and partially raging. Commented May 20, 2016 at 6:44
  • 2
    Well, I feel like the mods were getting a bit frustrated with you, but I think we can resolve this. Just present the facts, I'll back you up on the site rules, and maybe Rand al'Thor or somebody will unlock that post for you.
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 6:46
  • @anaranjada Present them were? in a new post? Commented May 20, 2016 at 6:48
  • 2
    No, here. I think this question as it stands now is enough to raise the issue. My suggestion: don't claim mod abuse or anything, just wait to see what the mods have to say. And at this time of night, actually, all of the mods are probably sleeping. It might take a few hours to get a response. Everybody makes mistakes, including mods, but I think that the mods we have here are basically fair, despite the occasional misstep.
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 6:49
  • @anaranjada Ok, should i then just update the post then with more info on the matter? Commented May 20, 2016 at 6:59
  • 1
    I think the mods will know what you're talking about anyway. You could add a link to the post you're interested in if you want to.
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 7:08
  • Of course, said post has since been deleted... :)
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Oct 28, 2016 at 12:47

2 Answers 2

10

Your post is useful for the site.

SFF Stack Exchange has a very clear community policy that questions should not be deleted simply because they're duplicates. Jason Baker's answer to the linked meta discussion provides lengthy arguments for why this would be a bad idea, but the TL;DR is that leaving duplicate questions undeleted increases searchability and it's always possible they may be reopened.

In your particular case, the question of where Dementors came from is a valid question about the Harry Potter universe which many people are likely to find interesting. And while the answer does exist on a previous question (hence the closure of yours as a duplicate), that question is entitled Did Ekrizdis create the Dementors?, which is a much less searchable title. Far more people will have heard of Dementors, which appear prominently in the HP books and films, than the wizard Ekrizdis, who as far as I know is only ever mentioned in a single Pottermore article. From the point of view of providing information to the maximum possible number of people searching for this question on the interent, your title Where do Dementors come from? is much more useful.

Also please remember that closure is not necessarily a permanent state. You believe your question is not a duplicate; if enough other community members agree with you, it may be reopened. Deleting your post is a way to ensure that nobody will ever see it again to upvote it or vote to reopen it.

You've licensed the content of your post to Stack Exchange.

Like it says in the small print at the bottom of every Stack Exchange page:

user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

In this sense, you don't "own" the contents of your post, so you shouldn't just delete the entire question and replace it by "ffs........", as you did twice. There's no network-wide rule or policy on deletion of duplicates, but SE is entitled to keep a post around on the site if it's useful content.

You can, however, request dissociation of your username and credentials from the question, so that it will show as having been posted by "anon" rather than "hedgehog", and will disappear from the list of your posts and activity. This can only be done by Stack Exchange employees, so if you'd like your post to be dissociated, you can either use the contact us link at the bottom of every page, or raise a moderator flag on the post so that we can pass on your request to the appropriate people.

(Note that I don't know much more about the SE licensing system than I've written here. If you want to know more details, please look around or ask on main meta.)

22
  • First of all, by you sayings, my post should be reopened and the dublicate mark removed, as you said on the question about Ekrizdis, there is no actual answer on were they come from or how they reproduce, so that makes my question NOT a dublicate. Then if YOU think that my question is usefull let it be answered!!!! What is the point of having a good question if you dont allow someone to answer it?? In continue, I am the official owner of the post, it is on my and only on my opinion if the post should be deleted. It could be also a moderators desicion, only in the case that it violates rules. Commented May 20, 2016 at 8:56
  • In continue to what i was saying, as long as my post doesnt violate any rules and the DELETE button is activated it is on my disclosure if I will delete the post or not, if I wouldnt have the right to do so, the delete button should be incative and this should be considered a bug or a logical error if you would like in another term. You have two choices here, either you re-open my post and take off the dublicate mark and you let the "good" question (as you said) be answered, or you let me delete it!! Choose.. Commented May 20, 2016 at 8:59
  • The four downvotes on the question suggest that the post is of questionable usefulness. Anyway, I would defer to the OP if it will keep the peace. The site won't suffer too much over the loss of one duplicate question.
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:00
  • As for the "vandalizing" of my post, well first of all it cannot be considered vandalizing as long as it is my post!!! It was an un-needed editing of mine, and i take full responsibility of that, but if you would like to press charges on to me for that, then these charges should also apply to the people that made me react like this, and these are the people that marked my post as a dublicate (no offense) without first considering talking to me about it, or even discussing about it!! Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:07
  • Because two persons think of something doesnt also has to be correct, and if someone wants to mark something as a dublicate and close someones elses question then he should first be absolute sure of that, or else it is an offense to the askers question. Maybe the moderators should reallly take in mind the suggestion of DVK-in-exile (meta.scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/2149/…) Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:07
  • @anaranjada The downvotes were more of a critisism to my sayings on the commens rather than a critisism on the question itself. Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:10
  • As for the licensing of the posts, I am pretty sure, that SE doesnt "own" every post and its contents or else there would be various critical problems going on with the SE's legal department and thats why i am pretty sure they have taken that in mind. The original author of the post is the owner of its contents not SE. If you are not sure of this, or you would like to get further information/confirmation we could always ask on law.stackexchange.com and see what they have to say in their expertise about this. Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:17
  • @hedgehog 1) Please calm down. There's no need to get so excited and talk about "pressing charges" - it's only a question on a website. 2) I'm not sure where you think I've said it should be reopened? I only said it possibly should. It's not a moderator's place to make that call except in very clear cases. 3) You have a point about the existence of a delete button, but different SE sites have different policies and it would be a fairly large change to remove the delete button on certain types of post. 4) "You have two choices here" - why?? There are plenty of closed but undeleted posts here.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:24
  • 5) You're probably right that some of the downvotes on your question were due to your attitude rather than the quality of the question. Personally I don't approve of this, but there's nothing I can do to stop people voting however they want. I actually meant to upvote, but forgot to do so before locking the question and now it can't be voted on. 6) Re the licensing issue: like I said, I'm no expert. If you want to be sure of SE rules on this, main meta is the place to go.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:24
  • 1)When i said "pressing charges" i meant, as Null told/threatened me yesterday, a suspension of my account. 2)As long as you said that in your opinion my post is usefull to the SE then isnt it kind of stupid to have a good question without an answer? So one brings the other if you understand what I mean. 3)I will not accept my post being closed but not deleted, if it is being closed it means that the information that it includes is not usefull, so if it is not usefull then it has no place in the SE! Because other people tolerated this doesnt mean I will too!! Commented May 20, 2016 at 9:40
  • 1
    I'm confused: I have always thought that if the system allows you to delete your own posts, then it's usually acceptable (not recommended, but acceptable) to do so. Null's answer to my comment seems to confirm that. I thought that this question expressed best practices, not an enforced policy, but your answer makes it sound like a site policy.
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 17:30
  • 1
    @anaranjada See Null's answer below for his reasoning in undeleting the question after the OP's deletion. Re your Data.SE link: what I usually do when I find a self-deleted duplicate is to leave a comment with a link to here and a reminder that dupes of good questions are often also good questions. This often causes the OP to self-undelete their post, which won't show up in your query.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 17:35
  • 2
    That escalated quickly (on Null's answer)... I don't envy your job, handling erinaceous users. (Yes, I wanted another excuse to say "erinaceous.")
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 20:08
  • 2
    I must admit that IMO, SE's policy is clearly unethical at best and immoral at worst. They profit from the user's content yet disallow deletion of that content when the sole creator wants it, never mind clearly has valid reasons to want it. Moreover, it is not clearly stated in layman's terms when you join the site. Basically, they bait and trap you into paying their bills and act like YOU are at fault when you wish to stop being used that way when you discover the truth they carefully hidden behind 3 layers of legalese when they enticed you to join. Commented May 20, 2016 at 21:26
  • 1
    ... mind you, the moderators in this case were merely enforcing the policy on the books, so my issue is with SE as a company, not them. Commented May 20, 2016 at 21:28
4

Rand's answer is an excellent explanation of SE policy and why your specific question should remain undeleted (it increases searchability, and you can edit it to possibly re-open it). Additionally, it's worth noting that Law.SE has a question about getting one's own questions/answers deleted which notes that

Users grant StackExchange a licence:

You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.

As the moderator who responded, I will explain what happened from my point of view. I initially responded to an auto-generated flag for too many comments. As I started pruning the comments I noticed that you were quite upset and were abusive to other users. Consequently, my first comment to you was:

You are clearly upset, but ranting about it is not going to solve anything. Please consider stepping away from the computer and taking a break.

Your first response to me (which you later deleted) indicated that you intended to "rage" and "troll":

yeah when i get misstreated and missjugded i rage a lot.... cause i know i am trying to explain somethign that i know its correct but none listens.... so troll mode on, yeah why not...

enter image description here

I therefore reminded you of the "be nice" rule (since you were abusive to other users) and told you that trolling would not be tolerated:

@hedgehog You are not being mistreated -- other users simply judged your question to be a duplicate and voted to close it, as is their right. You are not allowed to rage at other users -- you have to be nice. Trolling will not be tolerated.

Your response to that was to vandalize your question and delete it (after you had already vandalized it once before). I undeleted it, and you re-deleted it. I undeleted it once again and commented with links from Meta.SE explaining SE policy on deleting duplicates and vandalized (even self-vandalized) posts:

For the last time, do not delete duplicate questions. Also, do not vandalize your posts. You've now deleted it twice and vandalized it twice.

To summarize your behavior:

  1. You were abusive to other users.
  2. You stated you were in a "rage" and were in "troll mode".
  3. You vandalized and deleted your post twice.

Because of this behavior on your part, I warned you that you would be suspended if you continued such behavior. I also kept a close eye on the question throughout the day in case you came back to continue your behavior (that's how I noticed you kept deleting it).

Under more normal circumstances I would not have objected so strongly to the deletion of your question. I would have recommended you keep it undeleted per SE policy and for searchability, but I would not have undeleted it if you'd insisted. However, as I indicated in the comments, you appeared to be deleting your question in order to make good on your threat to engage in "troll mode".

As I said in my first comment to you, take a break and calm down. If you still think the question should be deleted after you've calmed down I won't undelete it. @Rand locked the post for a week, so you have until then to calm down and make a rational decision to delete it.

15
  • Sounds reasonable, and I'm glad to hear that the lock is only for a week. I imagine that our erinaceous friend won't be so upset in a week.
    – Molag Bal
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 17:43
  • I really do not care any more about the post, this has already got personal. So Null, you claim that SE has the copyrights of ALL my posts whatever these include in all SE's sites? (Be careful what you will answer on this one... It is a Legal question...) In continue, I was maybe a bit abusive or mostly unpleased you could describe by other users eradicated and preliminary based on nothing public opinion on my sayings. Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:19
  • That though wouldn't happen in the first place if this SE would have A CLEAR statement of what is a duplicate and what is not, so that they wouldn't be able because they "thought" so to close my question. Because as an example, i asked Rand al'Thor as well but he "forgot" to answer to me. You think that my question is a duplicate? Then this means that there is already a question and an answer for that. So please ENLIGHTEN me, where do dementors come from, how exactly do they multiply and what is their story... If you font answer this as well, your words have no base, no creditability etc etc.. Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:19
  • Indeed i was upset as i clarified as well on the comments, still not my fault though, other people brought me to this mental state and forced me into it. You stated that I wasn't mistreated, though i had different opinion of that, even though I heard what you said and as you could see from the further comments I tried to keep it nice and clean. You continue use the word "vandalize" in a wrong way. Let me clear this up for you, it is much more easier for me to understand and explain the nature of this word as long as it is a Greek (as I am) word "βανδαλισμός". Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:19
  • The original use of the word was used for expressing intentional cause of damage on piece of arts, creations, statues & architectures. Something that is NOT your property. In the last decades its only that the humans have been using the specific word for a wider range of meaning. So please refrain from using it in the future with the wrong meaning. If you want to still use this word, then thank you for thinking that my post is a piece of art. Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:19
  • To summarize your summarize: 1. Other users provoked me and made me be a bit abusive. (as well as you for not letting me delete the post and end the whole thing there, cause that's what i tried to do) 2. Do you believe everything that i say? I AM THE KING OF NABOO.... did you also believe that? 3. Again you are using the wrong word and taking my rights of deleting my own post. Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:19
  • If you have a problem with people deleting their posts, duplicated or not, then ask the developers of the SE to change the rule of deletion and deactivate the button, if it is there, and it is activated for me to use then you have no right not to let me use it. Still not my problem to deal with though. Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:20
  • You warned me? It looked more like than a threat to me..(excessive use of powers, someone would say). Do you even understand what you are talking about in the paragraph before the last one? I CLEARLY STATED THAT, I WANTED TO CLOSE THE POST IN ORDER NOT TO CONTINUE WITH THAT CONVERSATION BECAUSE I KNEW THAT IT WOULD END UP IN THIS KIND OF THING, AND I ALSO SAID ON THE COMMENTS UP THAT: WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT 8 REPUTATION..... you are serious with saying these things really? Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:20
  • My decision to delete the question, which I am still saying that is not a duplicate will remain. By the way i am really sad of all this situation and you are forcing me to be contacting an SE employee to investigate the possibility of moderators being "monarchs" and using excessive use of their powers given to them by the community. Have a very pleasant weekend. Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:20
  • @Rand al'Thor and Null, this discussion cannot be done/continued over commends, if you have further comments, please be kind enough to join me on a Skype call. Commented May 20, 2016 at 19:26
  • 1
    @hedgehog I did not, as you put it, "forget" to answer you. I went to the trouble of posting a question here on meta to settle the issue of whether or not your question is a duplicate, and even gave you a link to it. As for asking SE developers to change deletion rules, you're welcome to post on main meta requesting a change if you think it's warranted. I wish you luck in your correspondence with SE employees about mod abuse; they're well used to such complaints. And no, I won't be joining some random stranger on the internet in a Skype call.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 20:48
  • @Randal'Thor first of all, you didnt made the post, I did, second of all my question was rhetorical to show you that the answer to my question doesnt exist. It is not my problem about the deletion button Null is getting obsessed with it. What a defensive position after my "mention" of talking to SE's support.... Got something to hide? If not, then be straight up and dont try to hide behind words and "policies" because this is my game and i play it better... Commented May 20, 2016 at 21:03
  • @hedgehog You made this post? And Null was going on about the deletion button here and here? Let's stick with the facts here, please. More importantly, please remember to be nice. This is your final warning.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented May 20, 2016 at 21:10
  • @Randal'Thor ohhhh come on now seriously? its like you are trying to make me rage again... at which point now i havent been nice... I have been all trying to understand your point and try to make you understand my point, and i have been more than helpful providing helpful language and other information.... I didnt even see this post that you were reffering to up until now... Commented May 20, 2016 at 21:59
  • @Randal'Thor Having just seen that, I have to apologise for that one, I didnt know of the existence of this post you linked, I was only talking about this current post we are talking on. Commented May 20, 2016 at 22:06

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .