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I was trying to do some clean up by:

  • Deleting some of my useless* posts.
  • Voting to delete oldest questions which I voted to close, and is closed as not useful for future readers (Like the ones i targeted in this feature request).

As per my current reputation, I have 6 delete votes per day.

To my surprise, when I tried voting to delete old typo questions after deleting 5 of my own useless* posts, I realized that I have only 1 delete vote left for the day.

For me, this doesn't make sense because:

The privilege description says:

At 10,000 reputation, you can cast 5 delete votes per day. An additional vote is granted per 1000 reputation, to a maximum of 30 delete votes per day.

All users whether they have deletion privilege or not are allowed to delete 5 of their own posts per day, as far as I know.

The description also says:

When should I delete questions?

Closed questions that are of no lasting value whatsoever should be flagged and deleted

Why does deleting my own posts (useless*) consume the 5 delete votes granted to me..?

Aren't those meant to vote for deleting useless closed questions, as the privilege description says?


*Useless in the sense, very old answers to too localized questions which isn't accepted, has no upvotes where there is an already accepted or upvoted answer better than mine*

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  • 3
    Workaround: use the delete votes on others' posts first; then you can still delete your own.
    – user3717023
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:15
  • @CareBear, I don't think you can do that, and that's the questioner's point. Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:16
  • @FrédéricHamidi It works for me. The order matters: if a user delets own posts while having delete votes, the deletions are counted against their quota. In other words: a 10K user has some number of all-purpose delete votes, plus five self-delete votes that everyone has. For some reason, software prefers to use up all-purpose votes first. (For this reason, I begin every UTC day with a deletion spree; this saves the votes from being used on self-deletions and in the LQ queue.)
    – user3717023
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:18
  • 4
    @CareBear, then I would call that a bug, and consider it a sign that my answer is not as aligned with the system's intent as I thought :) Hopefully a moderator or a SE developer will show up to clarify that. Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:21

2 Answers 2

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Short answer: because the accounting of delete votes is a buggy mess. Although this is not obvious, each 10K users has two kinds of delete votes:

  • all-purpose delete votes (their number depends on reputation)
  • self-delete votes (five; these are available under 10K too)

The current behavior is that the software uses all-purpose delete votes as long as you have them, even if you are deleting your own post. You can avoid wasting the delete votes on self-deletion if you postpone self-deletions until you have no all-purpose votes left.

This behavior is also buggy. Today I used all my all-purpose delete votes (18) on posts by other users (on Math.SE), and then deleted two posts of my own. So I cast 20 in total. Now if I try to delete a post, the pop-up message tells me:

lol

(This might be a separate bug report, but the issue is obviously tied to the behavior you describe.)

-1

Well, objectively, your delete votes are removing content from the site.

That content being "yours" (quotes intended, consider later edits by others and the CC BY-SA license in general) does not alleviate that. Removal of content should be throttled, even yours, and spending votes is a good solution to that end.

The other 5-per-day limit is designed to counterweight delete votes being binding on one's own posts, and thus to prevent a high-rep rage-quitting user with more than 5 delete votes at their disposal from wreaking havoc on "their" content before actions can be taken.

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  • What does this has to do with rage quit? As far as I know, one can only cast those votes on closed questions. From my point of view, every user is allowed to delete 5 of their own posts... The 5 delete votes granted for 10k users for voting to delete closed questions should be * additional* to the common quota...
    – T J
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 16:57
  • @TJ, I mentioned rage-quitting to explain the difference between the 5-per-day limit enforced on deleting your own posts and the more general fact that delete votes are consumed even if they concern "your" content. Keep in mind users can single-handedly delete their own non-closed questions provided there are no upvoted answers. As for the rest of your comment, we disagree here (which is a good thing, otherwise there would be no debate), but I believe my opinion to be representative of the actual reason behind this behavior. Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:00
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    "users can delete their own non-closed questions provided there are no upvoted answers." - I don't understand what is the point you are trying to make..? What does eligibility criteria for deletion have to do with this..? Whatever it is, all users are allowed to delete 5 of their own posts per day. Delete votes granted at 10k to a user should not be consumed for deleting their own content since it is a common thing every user is able to perform... and those votes are a privilege which can only be cast on closed questions...
    – T J
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:09
  • That's where we disagree, yes :) Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:16
  • Your answer contradicts the situations where someone first deletes other content and then 5 of their own and can do so, but when deleting 5 of their own and then other content, it fails. The contradiction here is that these limits differ and thus the reason behind them can't be to throttle, or they'd be more uniform in their application.
    – Pimgd
    Commented Oct 20, 2014 at 11:27
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    @Pimgd, yup, that information only became available after I posted this answer. I chose to leave it here, as I believe that situation to be a bug that can be solved either way (mine or the questioner's), depending on how the SE staff wants delete votes to behave. Commented Oct 20, 2014 at 12:03

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