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I find that typically the recommend for deletion options are not usually the reasons why I would delete a post. Here are reasons I would use more often because I see these problems more often:

  • The post has many grammatical and spelling errors. It is extremely low quality and is an embarrassment to the site's professional image. Example
  • The post is blatantly personal opinion, and it does not answer the question at all. Example
  • There is too much content and little to no effort in formatting into paragraphs and headings. [I don't have an example right now, but I have certainly seen this]

There are probably more, but I cannot think of any right now.

I don't have the rep to cast delete votes, so I can't really say this would be helpful or not, but I think it would. Often I recommend deletion and just pick other because the other four options are not why.

Is this possible? Would it be helpful?

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  • 2
    Bad grammar and spelling would only seem to be a deletion reason if the meaning/intent was unclear (and it was a post-and-run). (With clear meaning, such errors can be corrected.) Your bad grammar example seemed to have worse issues than grammar. Likewise, some wall-of-text posts are relatively easy to edit into decent posts, though usually such is associated with disorganized thought--core dump of data rather than presentation of information--(so just adding paragraph breaks, punctuation, headers, blockquotes, etc. would not do much to rescue the post).
    – user3331
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 2:15
  • I'm declining the feature-request, but this is something the CM team has been putting some thought into. As Affable mentioned, the Very Low Quality flag is your friend. I'd also like to echo @Paul: an edit often fixes formatting problems (especially with missing paragraphs). Many newcomers don't know or understand Markdown.
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Oct 9, 2013 at 22:47
  • @JonEricson Thanks. It's always nice to see the SE staff address these things.
    – user3961
    Commented Oct 10, 2013 at 1:59

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Good news! There is already a means you have at your disposal to do what you what.

If you flag an item as <>Very Low Quality, you will see it says,

This question has severe formatting or content problems. This question is unlikely to be salvageable through editing, and might need to be removed.

As Paul states, bad formatting alone isn't enough to kill off an otherwise good post. That said, if it stinks, and there's nothing to redeem it, it veritably meets the 'low quality' definition in the text. If a mod agrees, they'll delete it. It's really a pretty good check.

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  • Yes, that is on questions, but I don't think there is such a thing for answers. I was just thinking to help mods save time. I figure they see who flagged or recommended for deletion from the review queue and we all gain a reputation with them for doing that appropriately. So I would think that for some they skim, but others they read the whole thing anyway. I just want to be as accurate as possible when I make a case for why someone else's post should be canned.
    – user3961
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 7:05
  • @fredsbend You can flag answers as VLQ too, it's not just a question thing.
    – Caleb
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 13:49
  • @Caleb As a mod you are saying that changing what is already there wouldn't help you any more?
    – user3961
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 15:41

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