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I admit it, I've been bad on History SE. Several of my questions have been deleted or soon will be.

My understanding is that the appropriate course of action now is to edit my question to make it worthy of un-deletion, and then flag it for moderator attention.

  1. Is that correct?
  2. After editing my question, are there other steps I should take before flagging (like adding comments, soliciting community advice, or waiting a specified length of time)?
  3. Other than trying my best to address the reason for deletion, can anyone suggest other good practices for determining when my question is good enough to flag?
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  • Thanks @MarkC.Wallace! I think this is enough information to generate an answer; does mine below make sense to you? Also, does this apply to questions that were deleted due to being closed for a long time? Also, are there times when flagging is the appropriate response? I ask because of suggestion #3 here.
    – capet
    Oct 10, 2020 at 15:21
  • Incorrect comment deleted.
    – MCW Mod
    Oct 11, 2020 at 4:55
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    Questions are rarely directly deleted - normally it would be put on hold (closed) first. In such a state, normal users are able to browse the question and vote to reopen. So ideally you should discuss it with commentators and fix the question at that stage. Deletion normally only happens if you ignore the question for some time, so that the system flags it as having been "abandoned" and deletes it. Once that happens, then yes, flagging for moderator attention would be your main (only) recourse.
    – Semaphore
    Oct 11, 2020 at 16:50
  • Thanks @Semaphore! I will try to turn this into an answer. When you say that I could discuss it with commentators, do you think comments are the best forum for doing that? Are there any other good ways to discuss it? In particular, is creating a meta post about a specific question considered appropriate?
    – capet
    Oct 11, 2020 at 17:44
  • @Semaphore In my case, I have two questions, each asked three weeks ago, that were closed and recently deleted (auto-deleted?) as a result. I have been regularly editing them since they were closed, in an attempt to address the original close reasons and also to fix other problems that I perceived with them. (Actually, I have been editing them since before they were closed, in response to community feedback.) Maybe I should have done more communication with the community members who closed it?
    – capet
    Oct 11, 2020 at 17:44
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    @capet The comment section may not be ideal for the task, but we have nothing better for it right now, so yes, please communicate with close voters there. And yes, both of those questions were automatically deleted by the system. I do see you've edited them after closure, but it doesn't seem to have alleviated the concefrns of closevoters. I suspect one problem may be that while you provided a lot of information, they seem extravenous, while your actual inquiry was very, very concise, to the point that they are the same as your titles. It is best to elaborate a bit on what you're seeking..
    – Semaphore
    Oct 11, 2020 at 18:46
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    @Semaphore Thank you for looking at them; I did not intend to go around the formal process to get a review. Should I talk to the close voters in the comments section of the deleted questions?
    – capet
    Oct 11, 2020 at 18:53

1 Answer 1

2

Based on the comments from Semaphore and LangLangC (thanks y'all!), I think the answer is as follows:

  1. Is that correct?
  1. Yes. Flagging for moderator review is the best and only option.
  1. After editing my question, are there other steps I should take before flagging (like adding comments, soliciting community advice, or waiting a specified length of time)?
  1. Try to improve the question, similarly to how you would a closed-but-not-deleted question. If you have any pre-deletion comments, try to use them as a partial guide. The same thing goes for any chats that might have been created prior to deletion, and you can also continue to discuss there after deletion. If you are really stuck, consider starting a question on History Meta to ask for feedback on how to improve the question.
  1. Other than trying my best to address the reason for deletion, can anyone suggest other good practices for determining when my question is good enough to flag?
  1. Just what's in #2.
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  • Re 2: Small problem 'Discussion in comments'. While 'deleted' no more new comments can be added. So that is: 'use existing comments as hints on how to best improve the question'. // What keeps me wondering is the 'general rule' scope: I'd think that 'long abandoned closed' (and downvoted) and auto-deleted Qs are far less a common occurrence for anyone being actually interested in undeletion. Seems to me that voluntary deletion (by vote of users/mods) – which is usually much speedier – would be the kind of situation this might be applicable more often? Oct 12, 2020 at 11:03
  • Thank LangLangC. I might want to take this answer down until I have a better understanding of what @Semaphore was trying to tell me with "The comment section may not be ideal for the task, but we have nothing better for it right now, so yes, please communicate with close voters there. And yes, both of those questions were automatically deleted by the system." Does that make sense?
    – capet
    Oct 12, 2020 at 17:19
  • @LangLangC I might be confused because I am an edge case? I am very interested in undeletion, have been working pretty consistently to improve my deleted questions, done additional research, but my questions are still auto-deleted. Also, in this case I have no existing comments to work with: the only comments on my deleted questions are from me and from one other community member who withdrew their close vote. Is there anything I can do in a case like that? Should I just do my best to improve the question and then flag for review?
    – capet
    Oct 12, 2020 at 17:27
  • What I meant re: 'discussion in comments'; no new comments can be added to deleted posts (in this A it sounds like an option), only old (& deleted comments) can serve as guidelines. [The last 'general rule' looks incorrect and redundant to me. Perhaps delete that sentence?] Where comments can play a role is before deletion (ie: when close votes come in or came in.) On deleted Qs, we have flags (preferred after edit), asking in general chat (or in room to the Q if there were so many that a comment thread got moved), asking on meta. If no comments on problems exist, Meta seems the place 2go. Oct 12, 2020 at 17:29
  • Thanks @LangLangC! Updating my answer.
    – capet
    Oct 12, 2020 at 17:45

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