2
$\begingroup$

If you want to delete a question with an answer, you have an option to delete that question. But when you have made that option to delete the question it seems not possible. Is that a mistake of this program or is there an other reason?

PS: there was one answer but not accepted or upvoted.

$\endgroup$
9
  • $\begingroup$ Is the answer upvoted? $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic Mod
    Jul 15, 2016 at 14:00
  • $\begingroup$ No it is not upvoted physics.stackexchange.com/q/268192 $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 15, 2016 at 14:28
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Try unaccepting the answer and then deleting. The criteria for when questions cannot be deleted by the OP are at How does deleting work? at the mother meta. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jul 15, 2016 at 16:34
  • $\begingroup$ I didn't know whether you could unaccept an answer. But anyway I've already accepted the answer so for this question it is not anymore applicable. Nevertheless for other questions it could be made more clearly what you can and not can do. $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 15, 2016 at 16:40
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Marijn If you want to delete the thread, you can unaccept the answer by clicking the green check mark, and you should then be able to delete the question. If you don't want to try this then you should remove the bug tag from this thread, though. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jul 15, 2016 at 16:43
  • $\begingroup$ There are two things that prevent deletion of a question: having at least one answer with positive total score, or have an accepted answer. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Jul 15, 2016 at 18:05
  • $\begingroup$ Well in my case both were not present and I couldn't delete it. But anyway that is for my question in case already history $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 15, 2016 at 18:39
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty Incidentally, at the time this meta question was posted, there was no accepted answer on the question. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 16, 2016 at 9:31
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidZ Interesting to note - this does sound like some interesting edge-case behaviour that's not very well documented. However, if Marijn doesn't want to act on this and cannot provide screenshots then there's very little more to do or discuss. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jul 16, 2016 at 11:53

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1
$\begingroup$

If I understand correctly, you're asking why you can't delete this question (which you identified in the comments). The reason is that you have accepted an answer. A question with an accepted answer cannot be deleted (except by moderators). However, you can unaccept the answer, which then may allow you to delete the question. (If there is an answer which has received an upvote - note, this is not the same as having a positive score - you still can't delete the question.)

The full description of when an answer can be deleted or not is in the FAQ on Meta Stack Exchange.

$\endgroup$
13
  • $\begingroup$ Initially I wanted to delete this question already before I accepted an answer, but before that I accepted the answer it was not possible to delete it. There was only one answer without any upvotes (as far as I could see, perhaps someone downvoted first and then someone upvoted it again I don't know) when I wanted this question deleted I got a note of this site that I could delete it but was not always advisable. So there was an option, I choosed for that one but then I got a note that this question couldn't be deleted because there was an answer. And that is in contradiction with the warning. $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 16, 2016 at 9:48
  • $\begingroup$ So I think it is a kind of bug in this program. $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 16, 2016 at 9:50
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Marijn in that case, you should do two things: (1) edit this meta question to say that there was no accepted answer and no positive-score answer while you were trying to delete it, and (2) include a screenshot of the error you get when you try to delete the question without an answer being accepted. While you're at it, it would help to clean up the wording of the question. I could barely understand what you were asking. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 16, 2016 at 9:54
  • $\begingroup$ I think a screenshot is not possible anymore as I accepted meanwhile the answer. $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 16, 2016 at 10:04
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ As everyone has been telling you, you can unaccept the answer to try to delete the question. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 16, 2016 at 10:09
  • $\begingroup$ I know I can unaccept the answer, but I think it's not fair because the anwer should be alwright $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 16, 2016 at 10:19
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ You can accept it again afterwards. Anyway, ultimately it's up to you, but there is probably nothing we can do about this without getting more information, specifically a screenshot. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 16, 2016 at 10:31
  • $\begingroup$ The first screenshot I got was this one: "Delete this answered question? We do not recommend deleting questions with answers because doing so deprives future readers of this knowledge. Repeated deletion of answered questions can result in your account being blocked from asking. Are you sure you wish to delete?" $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 16, 2016 at 10:37
  • $\begingroup$ The second screenshot, after chosing to delete it (I don't have anymore) but was something like: "You can't delete this question because it is already anwered" $\endgroup$
    – Marijn
    Jul 16, 2016 at 10:39
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Those are not screenshots. The first is a quote of the warning message (and is by design). The second is not really helpful. We'd need to see the exact error message you're getting. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 16, 2016 at 10:47
  • $\begingroup$ Minor correction to the answer text - any upvotes on the answer will prevent deletion, even if the net score is zero or negative. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jul 16, 2016 at 11:40
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty huh, that is not what I thought. Let me edit the answer accordingly. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Jul 16, 2016 at 11:43
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, it's a subtle point, and you often need 1k rep to see why you can't delete a question, but the precise wording of the meta post you linked is right. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jul 16, 2016 at 11:55

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .