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At the moment SE shows us current voting results, a notification for new answers and comments, etc., instantly. However, it doesn't show us when a post is deleted.

Please notify us also when a post is deleted. Then I don't have to type a (long) comment, only to notice the post got deleted in the meantime.

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8
  • 17
    I'm reopening this, since this question seems to be about someone else's question getting deleted while you're typing a comment or an answer. This isn't about notifications of one's own questions getting deleted.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Mar 17, 2013 at 20:23
  • 1
    I thought only closed answers could be deleted?
    – John Dvorak
    Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 8:21
  • @JanDvorak: You mean closed questions? An answer can't be closed. Someone can always delete their own answer and one can delete their question when there are no upvoted answers, IIRC.
    – Marcel Korpel
    Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 16:04
  • @AnnaLear: Thanks and indeed, but also about someone else's answer getting deleted while you're typing a comment, just to clarify.
    – Marcel Korpel
    Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 16:06
  • Yeah, I agree, this should be a thing, we have it for edits and answers, why not for comments? You could probably write a userscript though, not sure how that would work
    – scrblnrd3
    Commented Dec 25, 2013 at 19:20
  • @scrblnrd3 it would probably be very hacky. I might as well reload the page and do a full diff every ten seconds, but I'm looking for a more lightweight solution.
    – John Dvorak
    Commented Dec 25, 2013 at 19:35
  • Also, paging might do wonders with the poll-diff approach.
    – John Dvorak
    Commented Dec 25, 2013 at 19:46
  • Also affects flagging: Quite a few flags arrive after an offending post has been dealt with, sometimes hours later.
    – Daniel Beck
    Commented Dec 31, 2013 at 23:28

4 Answers 4

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1

This has been implemented for a while now.

When a post is deleted, everyone viewing it will instantly get such a banner:

The post itself is behind the banner, inaccessible, and comments can't be added as well.

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12
+50

This is very frustrating and should definitely be implemented. I suggest it would check every time a certain length is reached when typing out the comment, something like every 100 characters.

Maybe a message like this one:

This answer has been deleted; you can no longer post a comment on it. 'This comment is a hundred letters long and I should be notified if the answer is deleted like above.'

And most importantly, notify if the answer is deleted when you start writing.

But please only notify, do not refresh/delete the answer and comments from the user. That would get more annoying.

I realize I focused on answers on this one, but everything here applies to questions just as well.

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  • 1
    You shouldn't only be notified when you're typing, but instantly, like the messages that pop up when a question or answer has been edited; I think it's done using websockets.
    – Marcel Korpel
    Commented Jan 1, 2014 at 11:38
  • @Marcel that would work just as well then
    – 3ventic
    Commented Jan 1, 2014 at 11:39
  • I agree that using the websocket would be preferred over continually polling with AJAX.
    – Mike
    Commented Jun 2, 2015 at 19:02
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inb4 this gets ignored by the powers to be, bountied multiple times and finally solved by some hacky userscript -- Jan Dvorak Dec 25 '13 at 19:16

I might as well cut it short and write a userscript right away; should I go ahead already? -- Jan Dvorak Dec 25 '13 at 19:16

@Jan yes please. – Cole Johnson Dec 25 '13 at 19:19

Well, here we go.

Here's the userscripts.org page: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/187975

Uploaded to Github as well: https://github.com/honnza/drops/blob/master/so-post-monitor.user.js

(I intend to upload to both places, but github is slightly more reliable)

screenshot

Considerations:

  • The userscript works by refreshing the question page continuously. This requires the choice of a refresh rate. The highest possible rate through the API is one minute, which I consider insufficient. I've chosen a refresh rate of ten seconds, but I'm willing to take advice in this sense.
  • The userscript does everything to prevent unnecessary polling. It only refreshes visible tabs, it only refreshes questions for visible answers (an answer can be hidden by another userscript, collapsed in the flag list...; checking the scroll position is not done yet). Nevertheless, if you expand every answer in the review flag dialog, open a new browser window and repeat, you will probably get what you deserve. You can still ask me to reduce the refresh rate (or fork the userscript).
  • Questions with more than 20 answers are not updated. This is because the paging complicates the task somewhat. Not an insurmountable challenge, but the ETA is high enough to make the pre-paging version worth publishing already.
  • Due to the cost of this userscript (I tried to be nice, but I need to get the data somewhere), Stack Exchange developers are strongly advised to add the post delete/undelete information to the per-question websocket, or at least reduce the API cache timeout by a decent factor (also, I would like to see the quota increased for an unrelated reason). If the official javascript uses this information itself, the better.
  • The behavior for sub-10k users is untested (but should work for answer deletions). The behavior on disconnect needs to be considered when detecting question deletion for sub-10k users.
  • Should I disable the userscript on review pages? For audits only?
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3

This would be a very useful feature. In the past, I've spent up to fifteen minutes writing an answer or comment, only to have the question deleted before I submitted my comment/answer.

The notification could be like the one when you are editing something, and then someone else revises the post while you are in the process of editing (see picture below). Personally, I think it should appear as soon as the post is deleted, whether or not you are currently typing something.

enter image description here

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