Why was this question deleted instead of just on hold, closed, etc.?

Question

This question started off not so great:

https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/52264/what-do-you-need-to-know-about-buying-a-guitar

Still, it seemed to be meant well and attempted to present lots of information. It was asked by a new user who might be forgiven for not having the feel for SE right away. A few people commented and the asker took the comments to heart and edited the question, and turned the information into an answer.

It looks like a success. Perhaps it was a bit broad and could have attracted VTC on that basis, but instead it was just deleted. What do I not understand about this situation that explains the deletion? I'm pretty surprised by that and I've seen a fair bit of the usual activities around here.

Answer 1

In general once a site has reached large enough size, most posts get voted to close by the community, or flagged by the community for closure or deletion. And on Music.SE this works really well for almost all posts. And I agree with Todd on this - this is what we as mods want, as it saves us effort, and allows us to focus on the more complicated things we need to do. I also agree that this is the place to raise discussion about it.

But there are certain actions which mods absolutely have the power, and the right to do summarily, is to delete posts which are offensive, spam and a few other reasons.

For spam and offensive posts we delete, and even remove accounts as quickly as we can see them.

With off topic questions we generally can leave them up to the community, or what I try and do is wait until 4 votes to close have been passed, so I can act as one vote, rather than as a unilateral close.

But an exception is with questions that are not a good fit here, but that will attract a lot of activity. For these we also are likely to delete rather than put on hold, as we don't want people to have to put in effort answering a post that will be deleted. It's just not good for anyone. It is not one that could simply be edited to make it work -

Now - this specific post mentioned is explicitly off topic for this site. There is no doubt about that. Yes, the writer obviously put a fair amount of effort into writing it and the answer, and in terms of detail, I like what he's done. I would read it if it was on a blog.

But it is suitable for a blog. Not here.

Unfortunately the structure of it also means it is not something you could ust edit to make it fit, without deleting the answer anyway.

I'd second @Todd's comment to Marko about reading the FAQ to see how the site works. It looks like that is where the issue lies. And I absolutely approve of him raising the question here in meta to get community input.

Answer 2

Todd Wilcox -

Thanks for sticking-up for a fair process. Your assumption that - in providing answers to several questions I'd seen nothing in the archives generally addressing the purchase question - is spot-on.

I also appreciate the advice given by you and others. I certainly DID take it to heart and did a Jeopardy! number on my post. But the limited communications functionality for new guys - coupled with the moderator instant-delete - is really discouraging.

You appear to have the magic powers to see my other answers: you are welcome to evaluate whether my contributions have been/could be worthwhile...

But my point is that you folks run an inward-looking game. I don't see a reason to be a part of it, nor to recommend it as a resource to my students and fellow musicians.

Actually, I'm likely to tell folks to avoid it.

Because you've been actively helpful, I'll postpone my account-delete to give your rather scattered community opportunity to reply. But don't count on finding me in February, however....