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I would like to receive comments on recent deletion activity of one of the moderators.

IMHO, copying answers into a Wiki should not justify deletion of the original answer, especially if they received a large number of votes.

At least in one occasion the copying distorted also the context of an answer (see edit below).

It is fine to create a Wiki using Information in other answers, but original answers should be kept and referred to in the Wiki.

Question: What happens to the votes if answer is deleted by moderators? Is this a desired activity of moderators?

Edit: Concerning distortion: I know it can be edited but the second last bullet (as of now) in here reads

I just noticed someone was from Ocean Science Analytics (https://www.oceanscienceanalytics.com/our-services), which I had never heard of before.

This and in particular the "I" makes only sense in the original answer and not in a Wiki. If you delete this sentence from Wiki you remove a significant part of the original answer (flagging that this particular source is worth looking into, which I did after reading this answer). So best to keep answer AND selected information in Wiki

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    $\begingroup$ I don't know if this is an official answer so will put here - but anecdotally, I deleted my own answer to the jobs question after adding it to the wiki and my reputation did not change (if that is what you were asking about what happens to the votes?) $\endgroup$
    – selene
    Commented Oct 14, 2022 at 19:52
  • $\begingroup$ Could you link to where the distortion was so maybe we can fix it as well. I agree this is a good discussion to have and suggest following @noil post below to discuss over on the wiki discussions but want to make sure we don't lose anything valuable in the process! $\endgroup$
    – selene
    Commented Oct 14, 2022 at 19:53
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    $\begingroup$ @selene I was wondering the same and I found this Meta answer which says that in case of deleted posts, "Reputation earned for posts with a score of 3 or higher, and where the post has been visible on the site for at least 60 days, is retained". In the Bioacoustics wiki we are talking about, all responses meet these requirements, so no reputation scores are removed. This is something that could be considered when deciding to move a thread to a wiki style, i.e. potentially wait for 60days. $\endgroup$
    – Noil
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 8:10
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    $\begingroup$ I would recommend reading through my answers here and here for a better understanding of the purpose of CWs. I think there is a misunderstanding of the point of this feature: what is the point of keeping an ever-growing list of answers and compiling them into a single answer? $\endgroup$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 10:53
  • $\begingroup$ I agree with @JNat, it seems redundant to have the same information in 2 different places on a post. Moving forward we can be more pro-active about changing potential questions into wiki's from the beginning so we don't run into this problem. But our issue now is with previous posts we are dealing with retroactively, like the jobs post you are talking about here. $\endgroup$
    – Carly Batist Mod
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 16:33
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    $\begingroup$ I'll also add that I've edited that bullet-point in the wiki answer you noted was distorted (taking out the 'I', etc.) $\endgroup$
    – Carly Batist Mod
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 16:35

2 Answers 2

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I would suggest the following process:

  1. Discussing the general issue by posting an answer to these bioacoustics.meta questions as I think it is related:

  1. Editing the Wiki to correct the potential distortion. To do so, one needs to have access to the deleted post which is possible for the author of the deleted post or for somebody with ≥2k points

  2. According to the discussion conclusions on Meta, possibly asking to reopen the deleted post (also requires a certain number of points to do so) by flagging the post and choose the appropriate option. If many ask to do so, then moderators should look at it I guess.

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    $\begingroup$ sounds good to me. I'm a bit puzzled by the two links that you've given in this answer - they don't seem to go to the right targets. "How to decide" links to something about deleting posts (not about wikis); "How to change it to a wiki" links to the post itself. Is that as intended? $\endgroup$
    – Dan Stowell Mod
    Commented Oct 16, 2022 at 19:25
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks, there were unrelated indeed! dont know what happened. Corrected now! $\endgroup$
    – Noil
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 8:02
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I've just "un-deleted" the answers to that post for now, until we come to a resolution on how best to proceed!

EDIT: I've edited that bullet-point in the wiki answer you noted was distorted.

The new moderators are still in the process of figuring out what to do with these potential-wiki-type questions/answers, and we had been told by SE staff to compile all answers into 1 answer that was then turned into a wiki.

However, if that is not the way the BSE community wants to proceed we are happy to have a different protocol for dealing with these kinds of informational Q&A's.

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    $\begingroup$ Is there a way to freeze the pre-wiki answers encouraging new entries to be placed in the wiki? $\endgroup$
    – WMXZ
    Commented Oct 15, 2022 at 17:01
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    $\begingroup$ @WMXZ ah, this is a good suggestion - indeed there's an option to "Lock" answers. Shall we do it that way? Does that look good, i.e. clear, non-confusing, non-offputting? $\endgroup$
    – Dan Stowell Mod
    Commented Oct 16, 2022 at 19:21
  • $\begingroup$ What do you mean by "lock" or "freeze"? As in the answers couldn't be editable? Or wouldn't be able to receive votes anymore? Or just that the wiki answer could be pinned to the top with other previous answers below? $\endgroup$
    – Carly Batist Mod
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 1:41
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    $\begingroup$ @CarlyBatist info on locked posts: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22228/what-is-a-locked-post. I think this means both answers or questions can be locked and they have different outcomes. I haven't been able to find if a CW is locked if that means no more edits allowed (which would defeat the purpose of a CW :) $\endgroup$
    – selene
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 16:21
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    $\begingroup$ @DanStowell is this a different type of lock option you have (meta.stackexchange.com/questions/381491/…) That to me seems like it might do what we need - each existing answer could be locked, but the question can remain open, and the wiki answer can remain editable. $\endgroup$
    – selene
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 16:24

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