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This question that I asked several months ago appears to have been recently deleted:

https://superuser.com/questions/4143/what-interesting-types-of-things-can-dropbox-be-used-for

It had a large number of views, responses, and votes, earning me the Favorite Question, Good Question, Nice Question, Notable Question, and Popular Question badges.

I do realize that this wasn't technically a question attempting to solve a particular problem, and really shouldn't have been asked at all, but deleting significant amounts of (seemingly) quality content seems a bit harsh. Questions above a certain threshold of activity should probably be left alone, or just closed to archive the content.

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    If someone needs it, there are mirror(s) available. The content is still out there, just not listed on our community anymore. It can be harsh, but well, sometimes rules need to be there...
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Jan 27, 2011 at 20:37
  • I actually don't mind the harshness, just the confusion of trying to figure out why the question disappeared without a trace. Closing it seems to be the appropriate moderator action in this situation. If questions are going to be spontaneously deleted, there needs to be some way for a deleted question's author to be notified that it has been deleted, including a note that indicates why the deletion was done, similar to the close reasons we have. Otherwise, people are going to continue asking bad questions. We want to encourage them to modify their behavior and start asking good questions.
    – An̲̳̳drew
    Commented Jan 27, 2011 at 20:59
  • 1
    Users who ask bad questions generally don't understand why those questions are closed, because most often they haven't spend long enough on our network to get familiar with such features
    – Ivo Flipse Mod
    Commented Jan 27, 2011 at 22:19

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You might try re-asking that question in a form that doesn't run afoul of the new guidelines on what not to ask:

https://superuser.com/faq#dontask

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page. To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …

  • every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite _____?”
  • your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use _____ for _____, what do you use?”
  • there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”
  • we are being asked an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if _____ happened?”
  • it is a rant disguised as a question: “_____ sucks, am I right?”

If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about _____”, then you should not be asking here. If your motivation is “I would like others to explain _____ to me”, then you are probably OK.

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While I can't specify Diago's reasons for deleting it, I can only refer you to a similar discussion on MSO

While I pity your loss of badges, I don't think that popularity should be any reason to bend or break the rules. So if a question that violates our current FAQ is brought to our attention, it is dealt with.

I think I must emphasize that last part, because it means the mods aren't out on a witch hunt to bring down our wrath on off-topic popular question. You were simply unfortunate to have your question run into Diago :-)

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