Can anything be done to prevent askers from deleting their question once answered?

Question

I've just had a very weird experience with the following question:

https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/157748/apostille-two-times-of-the-same-document-with-a-translation-added

Moments after I posted an answer, the OP replied with a thank-you comment and immediately deleted the question including my answer. This is apparently allowed by the rules because my answer had no upvotes at that point (being only a couple of minutes old). Although I've obviously solved OP's issue, I would be much happier if the answer stayed around for the benefit of future readers.

Is there anything that can be done to discourage this behaviour, which doesn't seem to align with the core principles of SE?

Answer 1

While this is indeed frustrating, StackExchange rules currently allow this:

You can't delete your own question if it:

• has an answer with upvotes (even if that answer has a net zero or negative score)
• has an accepted answer
• has multiple answers (even if there are no upvotes)
• has an answer with an awarded bounty

You can't delete any of your questions or answers if you haven't registered your account (that is, associated a Google, Facebook, or Stack Exchange account with it).

However you can indeed ping the mods in this case and I have now undeleted that question.

Answer 2

Technically it's the user's choice. Questions should be left for future readers as they can benefit from your answer, and I'm sure that you spent time writing your answer (which is now deleted).

There are several things that can be done:

• The question can be flagged for mod attention to be undeleted
• 10k+ users can vote to undelete the question (3 votes are required, I have voted)

If this user does the same thing again and deletes their question, a private mod message to them explaining that they should keep their questions may be needed.

Answer 3

Is there anything that can be done to discourage this behaviour, which doesn't seem to align with the core principles of SE?

I have seen so much content deletion on Stack Exchange that I highly doubt it has any core principle around keeping user content publicly available, but I'll add to other answers that one might simply repost the question if the OP removed it (with proper attribution), as it's allowed by the license. This way one doesn't have to monitor the OP's future behavior.