When should a moderator not use his super-powers?

Question

I am asking this question because of a recent encounter with a moderator on this post. A moderator asked me to add an example to my answer, and when I didn't, he just deleted my answer.

Some extra points :

• The post had a bounty that was close to elapsed
• My answer was the only answer and AFAIK was correct
• I added the example, but the moderator left the answer deleted and the bounty elapsed

Had my encounter been with anyone else but a moderator, I would have received a comment such as : "I down-voted your answer because an example is required. If you add the example I will reverse my action". And it would have had much the same effect on me.

Somehow it seems to me that deleting an answer when other actions were possible, is too-final, a too-strong disciplinary action against a disobedient user.

As an aside: Bounty posts are protected against closing, but not answers. As the poster here lost his reputation for nothing, I think that he is owed his reputation back.

[EDIT]

Apparently there is no answer and no guidelines to the question of whether a moderator should take moderator-level action when a weaker community-level action might suffice and communicate the same message.

As usual (sigh), my attempt to start a general discussion has only started everybody explaining how bad was my answer. In my opinion, an answer that really solves the poster's problem needs interaction with the poster. Deleting an answer on a bounty question, where obviously the poster waits for a solution, blocks this discussion and any further improvement of the answer in a direction profitable to the user, not to a moderator who is anyway a highly technical person.

I didn't get an answer to my question, but did get useful information for myself for the future. For others, especially moderators, I hope this post may lead to some thinking.

Thanks to everybody that has contributed an answer here.

Answer 1

"With great power comes great responsibility." That applies to the moderators, but it also applies to you. As the user with the highest rep on the site, that makes your posts somewhat of an implied standard.

People look at your posts and expect to say, "I see why this guy is at the top." And in that position, new users should not be using one of your posts as an excuse that their low-quality post was just like what the highest-rated user posted. Unfortunately, when you're a rock star, you live under a microscope, and you have more influence than a typical "private" citizen.

The fact is, many of your answer are exemplary and the vast majority of them are at least good, solid answers. Occasionally, though, like this answer, you just phone it in.

Bounty questions aren't inherently special, but readers have an expectation that if people are competing for a bounty, they will put in a little extra effort to earn it. Bounty threads are in a spotlight and get a lot more scrutiny, and answers tend to be held to a higher standard.

So when the highest-rated user posts comment-fodder on a bounty question, it isn't surprising that the answer would get noticed and treated with more definitive attention than a random post by a random user.

Was the action excessive? Not every post of that quality by any user will be noticed, and if it is, it wouldn't necessarily be deleted. But being in the spotlight of a bounty, the treatment is also in the spotlight. Deletion was within the bounds of prescribed action, and your posts shouldn't appear to be subject to special, kid-glove treatment.

I'm not saying that it was, or might have been, treated more harshly. Rather the opposite. Site quality standards should apply based on the post, not the author. A bounty post is highly visible. To ignore a quality issue on such a post would have the appearance of special treatment for high-rep users. So it was appropriate and fair for a moderator to take some form of action on the post.

Was the action overboard ("reverse discrimination")? That's largely in the eye of the beholder. But when you're in a position of increased attention and scrutiny, avoid putting the moderator in a position where that question is raised.

All that said, the answer is now a good one and warrants undeletion. As far as the bounty, I'm not clear on the timing in this case, or the potential for a bounty to be retroactively fixed. Frankly, it would bother me to have a bounty awarded for the original post on a technicality if that's what was there at the time.

If the answer was improved to its current form during the bounty period but not undeleted in time for the bounty, responsibility for that seems to rest largely with you for posting the original version, the timeliness of improvement, and failure to flag the revision for undeletion as stipulated. That's all part of the learning process, and mistakes you won't make next time. Life is unfair.

Answer 2

I'm the moderator who did it.

It feels like the fair, and best course of action would be to treat these answers as I would any other answer from a user who I feel is inexperienced of the ways of the site. These answers don't exactly reflect the sort of quality one expects, and in this specific case is massively speculative. I've let users know in the comments of my expectations in quite a few instances where I've felt an answer was not good enough. Every single one of these comments were written specific to the answer, and thought went into them.

If I comment, I feel an answer is trivially salvagable. If not, deletion and optional comments to let the OP know is a tool for encouraging more substancial improvements. If I'm commenting multiple times with no response, well, clearly the OP dosen't see the need to make his question more awesome.

Links don't make answers. I've pointed out many times in the past, and have deleted many answers that were purely links with very similar messages. The request to flag once its corrected is literally one last chance to fix the issues with an answer, and in such a way I might not necessarily be the mod who deals with it. I could just as easily delete it and not give guidence, you've been on the site long enough to know how things should work,

Since you feel this is "too violent", Let me point out what the site rules say about this.

Answers that do not fundamentally answer the question may be removed. This includes answers that are:

• barely more than a link to an external site
• not even a partial answer to the actual question

Reimbursement of bounties is not typically the policies of the site. In addition, if the bounty is awarded since its the only answer, as opposed to the correct answer, it goes against both the spirit and letter of the rules. A bounty is literally spending reputation to advertise a question and there's no certainty of an answer.

Quite simply, this is merely a application of the rules of the site to both the letter and the spirit of it.

Answer 3

The original version of the answer counts as a non-answer, given:

There is extensive help to be found on the Web for writing AutoHotkey scripts, but I can also give hints if you wish.

Which, in the context of answers, is telling them to keep looking. (It's not for that one line, but that line summarises the whole answer.)

Anyone would be right in flagging or voting to delete that answer in that state as a non-answer. They could also downvote, but to say it wasn't subject to being deleted is not looking fairly at the requirements of an answer being self-contained and answering the question.

The comment about it being deleted includes this:

Feel free to edit this to an acceptable answer, then let us know so we can undelete it.

That is an ask of you to flag your answer after the edit so that anyone of the other moderators can also undelete it, if it was made into a legitimate answer. Only moderators can undelete moderator deleted posts.

Answer 4

When the answer was deleted, it looked like this. (Screenshot for <10K users.)

I now address this comment:

(1) You have not answered the question of whether deleting my answer in this context was too violent and whether the poster should be reimbursed. (2) It wasn't exactly a non-answer as it linked to the AutoHotkey home page where lots of information and examples are available. (3) I admit that the need to flag wasn't clear to me as this was my first such case, but in any case not much time was left before bounty expiration. (4) Could you undelete my answer which did cost me some time to write.

The answer was correctly deleted for being a non-answer, i.e. being only a link to somewhere else. Cleaning up such things is exactly what moderators are supposed to do. The moderator in question was very generous in giving you a warning before removing the answer.

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how much awesome info there is on an external site if the outside page changes or becomes unavailable; that's why we require answers to stand on their own as much as possible. Relevant SU FAQ: How do I recommend software in my answers? Answers that rely on external software must explain how to use the software to accomplish the task, per point #6. Had you said included an AHK script that accomplishes the task, the answer would be excellent.

Bounty candidate or not, non-answers are non-answers. If it makes you feel any better, the answer wasn't yet eligible for automatic bounty awarding. The question owner needn't get their bounty price back; in the current system, bounties buy attention, not answers.

Since the answer now appears to address the problem in the question, I would support its undeletion. Note that time spent on an answer doesn't necessarily justify its existence. I once spent some time putting together a really neat answer with cool screenshots, but I realized only after posting that it didn't address the problem. So I removed it.