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Users with at least 10k reputation can vote to delete questions. Unfortunately, the tools to do this are somewhat lacking so I have created a custom query that will show the most likely to be deleted posts on the site: Top 5 Posts with Delete Votes.

This query will automatically update each week so my ask is that few 10k+ users volunteer each week to help vote on whether we should delete the 5 questions in this query. It doesn't need to be the same set of users; this is just more grunt work that doesn't have its own area in the review tools yet.

If you find one of the questions linked worthy of debate, feel free to start a conversation here on meta to discuss it. In the meantime, there are a few hundred deletion candidates and simply getting the top five dealt with each week is a huge step in the right direction.

Thanks! If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions please bring them up.

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  • Were there any ones in particular that you're pointing out?
    – Mitch
    Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 19:46
  • @Mitch: No. This reminder is simply letting people know of another way they can help the site. The query auto-sorts by criteria to help us find the "best" candidates so all I need is a few people to go through and look at the top candidates each week.
    – MrHen
    Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 19:46
  • You have to wait 2 days before you can cast a delete vote. This restriction is removed for trusted users (20K+ reps) when a post scores -3 or lower.
    – Matt E. Эллен
    Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 19:47
  • @MattЭллен: The query is using Data.SE so it is automatically delayed by roughly a week. The "top" delete candidates will almost always be older than 2 days.
    – MrHen
    Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 19:48
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    Yay! I'm helping!
    – Mitch
    Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 21:03
  • I hate to ask, but is it any trouble to make it more than 5? The top 5 were deleted almost immediately.
    – anongoodnurse
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 7:01
  • @medica: I kept the number really small intentionally but if you want to do more work you can increase the number by editing the "Top" field.
    – MrHen
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 12:31
  • @MrHen - I did do that, but every time I clicked on a candidate for deletion, when I came back, the field had invariably changed back to 5, even if I saved the page. :( I assume I'm doing something incorrectly, though it did expand each time.
    – anongoodnurse
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 12:33
  • @medica: Here is a link set to 50 which you can bookmark. You'll quickly find that it is irritating to go through a larger list more than once because there is no way for anyone to figure out which posts they've already voted to delete. This is why I'd rather see a handful of people swing through each week and eliminate the Top 5. It is a lot less frustrating. :)
    – MrHen
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 14:39
  • Thank you! I will be glad to have the ability to vote for deletion with less difficulty than previously.
    – anongoodnurse
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 21:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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When casting delete votes, do please recall that normally, questions closed as duplicates should be left alone, not deleted.

This is a rule of thumb only, and exceptions will always exist, but the overall idea is that many roads lead to Rome. In other words, duplicate questions can make it easier for people to find the answers if the question is phrased differently in separate postings, because the search engines will pick up the alternate version.

Additionally, visitors who are not logged in will be automatically redirected to the question that that one was closed as a duplicate of.

On uncommon occasion, there can be an argument to be made that a truly duplicate question should be merged into the original instead of being retained separately.

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  • Er, yeah, good point. I'll update the query at some point to filter out dupes.
    – MrHen
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 0:33

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