Post History

Shouldn't be able to delete question after any response

This is in response to something that happened on the Math site, but it's really a Codidact-wide issue.

A week or two ago, someone posted a poorly written question.  Not surprisingly, the question wasn't well received.  However, I did write a few comments that pointed out confusions, asked for clarifications, and a little general feedback.

A day or two later, the question just vanished.  It turns out the OP deleted it.  That was a bit annoying because any record of what was said also vanished.  I agree the question was probably headed for closure, but it's still important to keep such things around.

A few days ago, what appeared to be the exact same question was asked again.  I wrote a comment about this being just like a question from a week or two earlier, and the OP said something to the effect <i>"Yeah, maybe this time it will work better"</i>.  I thought that was a bit rude, being abusive of the site and others' volunteer effort.

I repeated some of my issues from the previous time in comments.  The question then vanished again.  That's really irritating.  Not only did I end up wasting my time twice, but the visible record of this user's activity is now incomplete.

I think it's important for others to see how this user has reacted in the past, whether that is on closed questions or not.  It's also important to have a record of what are considered good and bad questions.

So the proposal is: <b>User's can't delete their own questions after someone else has written a comment or answer to it.</b>  If a question is badly received, you need to fix it if you want an answer.  You don't get to pretend the whole thing didn't happen, then try the same thing again later hoping for a different result.