up vote 7 down vote favorite

There is an specific reason to disallow that a closed question be deleted by his owner? I mean, if the question is closed and it doesn't reach the forum rules, why the owner can't delete it if he wants?

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What question are you talking about? – soandos Aug 22 '11 at 16:59
Im not talking about any specific question, but I saw a lot of people that posts a low-quality question and get -10 downvotes without even having the possibility to delete it own post. I would like to create this post on meta to discuss about it and to know if there are moderators/administrators reasons to do it. – Diogo Aug 22 '11 at 17:06
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How do you know they don't have the option to delete it? – soandos Aug 22 '11 at 17:07
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@soandos: They can't delete it. – Tom Wijsman Aug 22 '11 at 17:33
@Tom that is only for meta. – soandos Aug 22 '11 at 17:36
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@soandos no, post owners can't delete it if there are answers on it – Sathya♦ Aug 22 '11 at 17:40
So, if I had answeared a closed question(before it is closed) the best thing i could to, in order to benefict the question owner, should be deleting the answear to his question? – Diogo Aug 22 '11 at 18:02
@Diogo_Rocha no... the best thing to do is flag it and let the moderators decide what to do... if your concern is to get those down votes away from an account, then I must remind you that down votes are important and essential to our system. – KronoS Aug 23 '11 at 1:44

1 Answer

up vote 5 down vote accepted

You can actually...

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As long as it's your post, and is at least two days old AND there are not upvoted answers.

But in order to delete other's questions you need 10k rep. If you look at your privileges page and select 'access to moderators tools' you'll see a reason why deleting ALL questions that are already closed is discuraged:

Before voting to delete, please check that there are no good answers -- if so, then the question should be flagged for moderator attention as a potential merge candidate. We don't like to lose great answers! Also, be cautious when deleting questions closed as duplicates - if they can serve as a signpost, directing users to useful answers on another question, leave them be.

I would say that if you want to delete a question, first contact or flag a mod first and let them handle the question and answers.

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this is correct, but I would also add that for some questions, their existence runs actively counter to the site's charter (e.g. they may be VERY VERY off-topic) so even if the answers are great, they might need to be removed. – Jeff Atwood♦ Aug 22 '11 at 19:52
@Jeff agreed and those cases should be left to moderator and 10k+ decision maker (as they already are). – KronoS Aug 23 '11 at 1:40
This answer is not correct. A just-posted question can't be deleted by the person who asked it. The board says it has to wait for two days. – Kyralessa Aug 21 '12 at 18:35
@Kyralessa I've updated my answer according to my current knowledge. – KronoS Aug 21 '12 at 19:39

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