7

I don't understand why Most Numerous Or Common was "Deleted by Community" just now.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the only existing answer, which says that there's something not quite right about the OP's construction "Buckley is the 99th most numerous name in Ireland."

But I don't understand exactly why I take that position, particularly given that I don't seem to have the same problem with ""The most numerous members of this network are relatives living within one mile", as put forward in a comment.

Because the question has been deleted by "a moderator", I can't even vote to undelete it.

So I've really got three issues here. First, I'd like the question reopened so it can be kicked around a bit in hopes that I might gain some understanding of the grammatical issue involved.

Second, I'd like to know what the actual reason for deletion was in this specific case.

Third, I'd like to know why "Community" is able to delete questions without giving a reason. If a deletion somehow represents "policy" on the part of TPTB, surely we all need to know the reason, if only so we can fall into line with (or remonstrate against) site policy.

UPDATE: I'm satisfied with @Reg's answer, but I'll just point out here that because I thought the question itself was "interesting", I re-asked it myself on main.

2
  • 2
    1) doesn't seem to be a big loss to me. 2) probably duplicate many times over. 3) I am curious who this 'Community' dude is though.
    – Mitch
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 16:39
  • 1
    @Mitch: Well, I have to say it seems unlikely anyone has ever asked ELU about the exact contexts where numerous can be used. But if I do decide to re-ask the question (as I did on more than one occasion in the past when something like this happened), I'll be sure to be extra thorough in checking for a past duplicate. It may be no big loss to you (and whoever upvoted your comment), but I'm quite irritated now it's been brought to my attention that I'm happy with the second usage given above, but not the first one, and I have no idea why.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 20:35

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
7

My guess is the user was destroyed (you know the most likely reason why). That the question is then deleted automatically comes with the territory. Automatic deletions, closures, or downvotes are some of the reasons why the Community user exists in the first place.

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  • 3
    Ah right. That makes sense. I now recall at least one previous Q from "the most likely reason" where something like that happened. ty.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 17:06
1

When an account is deleted, all questions owned by that account are deleted automatically, regardless of votes or answers (item 8 in this answer). (Any answers on that account with scores 0 or lower are deleted as well.) The Community user exists to perform automatic maintenance operations, including automatic deletions.

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  • In the case in point, the question was deleted less than 12 hours after being posted, at which time it had an answer with three upvotes. So what you say may well be true, but it's not directly relevant.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:28
  • @FumbleFingers: See edit.
    – bwDraco
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 18:26
  • 1
    Ah, right. Well I suppose that's actually part of the explanation in this case then. But I'm sure Reg is right that it all stems from the fact of one particular banned user being identified and deleted (for the umpteenth time - he's nothing if not persistent! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 19:45
  • Can someone explain the downvote?
    – bwDraco
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 0:35
  • @ DragonLord: You'll be lucky! Possibly someone thought it wasn't really relevant, since in this case even if "Community" is the identified "agent", it's a racing cert an individual (a mod, or one of the techies/TPTB) actually took a decision to delete the user. You could say the deletion of that user's "unupvoted" answers simply flowed automatically from the deletion, but probably the person taking the decision to delete was actually looking at the question when they did so. Making it a bit meaningless to say "Community" did it, in that "active" sense.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 27, 2013 at 0:46

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