We have lost a lot of important questions and answers, because the authors decided to delete the threads.
- This erases the work of those who have spent time in creating the answers and in consequence the motivation to answer is reduced.
- I've seen several homework questions disappearing, such that the teachers or professors cannot detect such cheating anymore.
- The deleted thread are usually important for the personal reputation (not the numerical reputation number). E.g. it is helpful to see, if the author cared for further inquiries or if a question was answered already but the author does not want to care about it.
I'd prefer to let only TMW and the editors delete threads if they conflict with the idea of this forum (Don't section in About MATLAB Answers) or if the author asks for deleting and mentions any reason. But without a reason, editing the message should be enough.
Do you agree or are there good reasons to let the authors delete their threads if they like to?
[EDITED] I've expanded the topic to overwriting a question with garbage. I suggest that editors and admins reconstruct such messages (e.g. from Google's cache), until the authors ask for deleting with a good reason. Thanks.
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