Can a moderator delete a quite popular question to prevent discussion of a close decision?

Question

If a moderator decides unilaterally to close a question, and their decision doesn't have strong support from the community, and a number of people later ask for the question to be re-opened and give sound reasons for disputing the moderator's rationale in closing it, is it considered an acceptable use of privileges for that moderator to unilaterally delete the question in order to prevent further discussion of their decision?

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A while ago, I asked a question on the Android stack exchange site which was unilaterally closed by a moderator with little explanation.

(It being deleted obviously means it's hard to view: here's the latest archive.org link from Oct 2013 but unfortunately this doesn't include the latest comments).

I completely reworded the question responding to the limited feedback given, and posted a question on meta asking for a clarification. Since then:

• Two other people with comment privileges, finding the question while researching the topic, commented voicing their disagreement with the decision to close the question.
• At least one other user (a diamond moderator on the site) voted for it to be re-opened (I can't see re-open votes going back so I don't know how many other people voted to re-open).
• Three people have favourited the question, hoping for it to be reopened and answered.
• The question has received over a thousand views ("Popular question" badge) and at least 5 upvotes (not bad for a niche question), showing that it is a topic there is interest in.

• The meta discussion showed little support or substance to the moderator's reasons for closing:

  • The two highest voted answers to that meta post, both from diamond moderators, say (in order of popularity) (+4) that the question is good, on topic and shows a good "amount of effort and pre-question research", and that the only issue is whether a question can be closed for being difficult to answer (I'm sure the official SE line is, no, a question being difficult isn't a valid close reason so long as it's on-topic, fact-based and well-researched), and a similar answer from another diamond moderator (+1) agreeing that the question is difficult, but should on balance be re-opened.
  • The moderator's own explanation on meta couldn't possibly be the real reason they closed the original question: they criticised me for not including context and background, when the original wording at the time of their closing it was full of context and background which I had reluctantly removed in my edit thinking this context and background was what had caused the question to be closed.
  • Their main other reason given for closing was to speculate that the question would be of no use to anyone else in future and so should have been "too localised", and there is clear evidence (above) that this is not true.
  • I commented answering each point made by the moderator who closed the question, including pointing out that his main criticism argument was not true of the question at the time he closed it, and these comments were ignored. The vote score on the moderator's meta post (currently, 0) shows that his position did not have any strong support from the community.

Just now, after the second comment disputing the moderator's decision (which notified the moderator who had closed the question), that moderator instantly deleted the question, while leaving a hostile comment that shows his motivation is personal annoyance at the discussion of his decision to close the question ("...I see no further point in continually discussing an old, useless question..."). "Useless" seems an unusual way to describe a question that has been favourited three times despite not yet having had the chance to be answered - it's clearly not a judgement that is supported by the community.

To me, this doesn't seem like a correct use of deletion privileges.

My understanding from the help centre is that questions are to be deleted when they risk causing harm to a site (e.g. if they are offensive or so off topic they could give the wrong impression of the scope of a site). In this case, the reason for deleting the question seems to be to prevent discussion of their decision to close it.

Is this a valid use of deletion privileges? If not, what should happen?

Answer 1

The question was closed in June 2012. It's asking about why a particular app was pulled from the Google Play Store and specifically what security issues did it raise.

As seen in the Meta discussion about it, two other users (current Android Enthusiasts Community Moderators) weigh in with their thoughts. In essence: Nobody can answer with authority except perhaps the author of the app and/or the Google personnel who pulled it from the Play Store. Unless someone can reverse engineer the app and analyze it, any answers would just be speculation.

In all the time it was closed, it was never re-opened. Meaning there was really no great push from the community to get the question an answer. Oh, it was edited for grammar a bit, but that's all. And so it has lain fallow for 2½ years.

Earlier today someone posted a comment asking why the question was "Non Constructive". (I'll not re-hash why "Non Constructive" was removed as a Close reason in the latest redesign of the Close voting system.) I don't want to speculate on the Moderator's mindset, but most likely the @alert in the comment just brought him back to this old, closed question and, seeing no hope of it ever being answered, deleted it.

Since the Moderator who deleted it is the one who unilaterally closed it initially, and was being questioned in the comments, it probably would have been better for a different Moderator to step in and act so as to reduce any questions of impropriety.

All that said, I would have voted to delete it, and I'm just a high-reputation user at Android Enthusiasts. It's virtually impossible to get any facts except what's already been reported (and would be findable by a quick web search) and so the question is inviting speculation. Discussion. Not a good fit for Stack Exchange.

Answer 2

I'll answer in general as I can't see enough information to actually judge this specific situation.

Questions that are under active discussion should not be deleted at all as this prevents the community from participating in the moderation of this question. There are exceptional cases where deleting would still be warranted, but in general such a question should remain undeleted so that the community can vote to reopen and discuss it.

But once the discussion is over, and the question has not been reopened by anyone, the situation is different. If the discussion was not convincing enough to get the community or any moderator to reopen the question, it is unlikely to be reopened at any later point.

Old, closed questions are routinely deleted by moderators, especially if they cause any kind of trouble later. The question you mentioned is now over 1.5 years old, so cleaning it up if it wasn't reopened would not be an unusual action for a moderator.

Regarding the number of votes, views and the times it was favorited, those generally don't matter much for the decision to close or delete. Popularity does not save a question from being closed if it doesn't fit the rules of the site. Favoriting is also pretty meaningless as some users use it simply to mark questions they want to find later, often also bad ones.

Answer 3

for that moderator to unilaterally delete the question in order to prevent further discussion of their decision

Discussion of whether to close or delete a question shouldn't be taking place on that question. It should be taking place on the appropriate meta site. Such meta discussions can still take place with the question being deleted.

You posted a meta question, and looking at that meta question there is certainly no clear community consensus that the question should be reopened/undeleted. Were there to have been a clear community opinion that the closure wasn't correct, you should have seen the question be undeleted and reopened.

Answer 4

I think the others covered it well but obviously I should chime in. Al in particular is correct when he says I should have left it for another mod.

The new comment ignored the Meta thread and indicated that they hadn't even read the rest of the comments, which were bad main-site comments anyways that should have come to Meta. So I pointed out that I had explained my view and where to find it, and deleted the old and oldly-closed question that seemed to remain to only attract bad attention (could be what you mean by "quite popular").

Also should be noted is that the question already should have been deleted. I did a bit of our usual delete-old-closed-questions yearly cleanup in January but have had no time to keep going since then.