When and why will my stuff get deleted? (if it will be)

Question

I really like this website and use it regularly. I have posted a lot of questions and I have attached some pictures to them as well. People on this website have given very good and useful answers to my questions as well. But I'm curious to know if any of this stuff will get deleted for any reason possible.

What I basically want to know is that when (if someday) any of the questions/pictures/answers I posted or are posted on my questions will get deleted?

I'm asking this because I don't want to get them deleted ever, until the website exists of course :)

Answer 1

NVZ has already provided links to almost everything you need to know about deletion (and some stuff you don't), so I'm going to just outline the most relevant things about deletion of questions specifically. (Well, I'm trying to outline, but it turned out pretty long anyway...)

Being [closed] or [on hold] is the first step towards deletion

Users with enough rep can vote to close questions.

• The system will automatically delete questions that meet certain criteria (this process is called "Roomba"). Some of the questions that get deleted are old and had no activity (including upvotes) yet are not closed, but most of what gets deleted is questions that are closed. Unless it is reopened, this question of yours is going to get deleted soon by the system.
• High rep users can vote to delete questions that are closed. (See the privilege pages for 10k+ users and 20k+ users.)

It's best obviously to ask questions that don't get closed. The most important thing to do here to prevent the chance of closure is to show your research (I like what this answer says).

If your question is closed, you can use some of the steps here (see "Reversing Closure") to try to get it reopened.

There are fewer things that can be done if the question is deleted. If you think you'd be able to fix your question enough that it should be undeleted and reopened, ask about it here on meta, and include a link to the question and mention the improvements you want to make.

It's not uncommon for things to get deleted

When you post a lot, even if it's high quality, inevitably stuff gets deleted. In my case, ~2% of my posts are deleted (none of these posts were upvoted, however) and almost all of that deletion was due to answering questions that got closed, then deleted by Roomba.

Post deletion is soft deletion

When your question or answer is deleted, you will be able to see it if you have the URL. In addition, at the bottom of the lists of your questions and answers (found in your profile) will have a link to deleted recent questions and deleted recent answers respectively where you can find some of your deleted content.

Answer 2

Thank you for being an active user.

Questions, answers, comments, and even user accounts are deleted when they meet the criteria listed in the help centre pages, mainly:

• Why and How Are Some Questions Deleted
• Why and How Are Some Answers Deleted?
• The Community User Deleted My Question! What Gives?
• Comment Everywhere
• Be Nice.
• How to Reference Material Written by Others
• Trusted User

In short, only the bad and unhelpful content is deleted.

So, as long as your posts are on-topic, fleshed out, and well-received, they will live.

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Further reading can be found at: How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?

Answer 3

Ordinarily, comments can be deleted from the main site without a trace, without notice and without recourse. Moderators do have the ability to restore even those, but any post worth preserving should be posted as proper questions or answers ... as well as your own backups, where appropriate.