What's wrong with this +7 answer?

Question

This answer has received 7 upvotes and no downvotes.
(warning, you may not see it unless you have enough reputation on the site)

Nevertheless, the poster has deleted it.

AFAIU, the answer contains a rather interesting research and I see no logical or factual flaws.

Argument: This answer on Meta.SE says:

You have irrevocably licensed your content to Stack Exchange

From the terms of service section 3, as quoted in this answer:

You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. You grant Stack Exchange the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content

That is, you do not have the right to simply delete all of the content you have licensed, as it is no longer your right to do so.

So, I've just casted my undeletion vote, but I'd still like to know:

Question 1: What is the reason for deletion?

Question 2: If there is none, should we forcibly undelete it?

Answer 1

Yellow Sky's answer is a really good on, while mine is an amateur research with a bit of wrong conclusions. You can spot it in edit history of answer. I had two options in my mind:

1. Delete answer to do not fuse people with not-so-precise stuff
2. Strike trough answer and explicitly mark it as wrong one.

I chose to go simple and not-so-painful chicken-heart way.

But now I can see that it's better to undelete it to do not play false with correct answer. And explicitly state where correct answer is in the body of my answer

Answer 2

Answer 1: just read comment to accepted answer from Chizh (author of comment): "так, дійсно більше схоже"

I think Chizh read answer from Yellow Sky and decided that his own answer is wrong.

I think in such situations author of answer should edit his answer and write why he thinks his answer is wrong on top. So I think we should ask Chizh to undelete it (can he?) and edit it. Because in this case his answer provides valuable addition to accepted answer.

But I totally understand Chizh - I've deleted my answer in similar situation when I thought it was wrong because it is the quickest way to stop giving false information to users.

Answer 2: Possibly... If Chizh won't answer here for some time...

Update: I've upvoted answer of @Sasha - I think his answer to Question 2 is better. But won't delete this answer :)

Answer 3

I am sure the answer by Chizh is a good one, I was very surprised when he deleted it. Whether he edit it or not, I am in for undeleting it, but not forcibly.

He made a good research finding Slovak equivalents of those obscure words in the song, he made his own conclusion about the story told in the song. As you can see, my own answer there has no prooflinks, it was written as an addition to Chizh's answer and was meant to be based on those Slovak entries he described. My analysis of the song plot is based on the information I got from ethnographers I know personally, they have no accounts on the internet (they are elderly men), so I cannot give any prooflink.

Without Chizh's answer my own answer looses some credibility. I wish his answer be undeleted.

UPD: And, I also want to mention that question was about a song in the Rusyn language. The problem if Rusyn is a Ukrainian dialect or a separate "East Slavic" language is still unresolved, some say that is a Ukrainian dialect, others say it is a separate language, and I am inclined to accept the latter, so I have some doubts about whether that question in general relates to our SE. How Ukrainians (called there Rusyns) got to Serbia and Croatia is a mystery to me, so I stick to the interpretation of that language as a separate one, Rusyn, so I would not be opposed to reformulating that question or deleting it (that would be sad, a very interesting historical heritage story), because this site is about Ukrainian. Do not forget in this regard that the song "Плине кача по тисині," which became the requiem of the Heavenly Hundred, is also a song in Rusyn, so between Rusyn and Ukrainian there are ties closer than between two related languages that look in different directions. Thus, everything is up to the Highly Respected Jury.

{А, ще хочу зазначити, що там питання ж було про пісню русинською мовою. Чи є русинчина діялектом української чи окремою «східнослов’янською» мовою є досі нерозв’язаною проблемою, одні твердять, що це діялект української, инші ж, що це окрема мова, й я схиляюся до другого, тому в мене є певні сумніви щодо того, чи взагалі це питання належить до нашого SE. Як українці (звані там русинами) опинилися в Сербії й Хорватії для мене загадка, отже я пристаю до трактування тієї мови як окремої, русинської, й тому я був би не проти того, аби це питання чи переформулювати, чи видалити взагалі (жаль, цікава фактура), бо в на сайт саме про українську. Не забувайте в цьому плані, що пісня «Плине кача по тисині», яка стала реквіємом Небесній Сотні, є теж піснею русинською мовою, тож між русинською й українською є тісніші зв’язки, ніж між двома спорідненими мовами, які дивляться в різні боки. Отже, все на розсуд Поважного Журі.}

Answer 4

1. I suppose that after a new answer appeared, Chizh (the author of the discussed answer) considered the research in own answer to be not fully correct and decided to delete it (not to confuse readers). Actually, this his comment almost obviously confirms that.

2. No, you have no moral right to forcibly edit or undelete somebody's answer!

   • As for this piece of legal terms:

     You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. You grant Stack Exchange the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content

     — they are unrelated to deletion of user content. It is related to the licensing, not to the visual layout of the content on the site.

     Publishing a content under the CC-BY-SA license means that anybody can share that content (even in modified form, if a final reader is notified) with reference to the original place/author. It doesn't necessarily mean that author loses control over his content even in the place of publishing — or that somebody gets control over it. The latter is more technical aspect of the platform, rather than legal aspect.

     From that text excerpt (and from technical aspects of SE), it comes out that a user, once published his content in SE, can no more fully restrain his content from being available for reading and copying to wide audience (e.g. even if he edits/deletes his post, it may still remain available in history, in special areas accessible for highrep users and within derived works — and many users will still be able to read and copy it, referring history / hidden post / derived work as used source) — not that he necessarily loses control under his exact post.

     _{Yes, juridically and technically, SE, being both a license holder and platform owner, can do almost everything. But you, specifically bytebuster, are not related to SE — de jure you don't represent interests of SE Inc., but are just a one of millions of its users. So you must follow moral standards common for all its users.}

   • In that answer on Meta.SE jimsug (its author) is simply wrong.

   • In this community post on Meta.SE, specifically in it's section “If I flag my question with a request to delete it, what will happen?” they describe aspects of prohibition-to-be-deleted and undeletion for questions.

     As a question may have one or more assigned answers (which are somebody else's content, possibly useful for community), questions are more restrictive about deletion both technically and administratively. Technically, you can delete your question only if it has no answers or has a single non-upvoted non-accepted answer (otherwise you can only ask about (flag on) its deletion and mods can (and most probably will) refuse to do it; when seeing case of incorrect question deletion mods can undelete it). Still, even for the questions it says: “[assuming you want to delete your question] if you can delete your question (because it has no answers, or the only answer has no upvotes), then you should do it”.

     The common sense says that when SE wants you not to do something without a real need, it makes it for you nontrivial. E.g. deletion of your own question that has (upvoted/accepted/multiple) answers is nontrivial, deletion of your own accepted answer is nontrivial, edition of somebody else's post is untrivial, etc. But deletion of your own non-accepted answer is trivial.

   • In this case I strongly suggest you:

     • (a) To personally ask a user to undelete his answer.
     • (b) If he refuses, you can write your own answer referring and quoting his deleted answer.

     But in no case I would forcibly restore a user's answer when the user doesn't want it. This would just make him feel himself as unimportant here, and moderator / other user — as over-powered.

     Upd.: Probably the only case I'd restore an answer deleted by the author himself is when both is true: (1) I suppose a user won't disagree or simply doesn't care; (2) I suppose that it's hard to contact a user (e.g. he may never appear at SE again). In that case I'd restore his answer with making a comment like “Sorry for undeleting your answer. I did it because […]. Feel free to delete it again, if you wish”.

     _{Upd. 2: It's also possible to do the following trick (it lays within the “personally ask a user” way): undelete, write a comment “please, undelete it, because it's useful”, quickly delete it back.}

3. I see cases when users delete their answers they consider being incorrect not for the first time (although in this specific case user restored his answer himself after reassuring it's correctness). I consider it as being not the best style, I'd personally in this case better edited my answer, saying smth like “Sorry, I changed my opinion”.

   Still, I consider a user to be in full legal and moral right to delete his question/answer when technically SE allows his to do so (I consider SE technical limitations for these cases to be quite reasonable). Of course, that won't exclude the answer from the public access (both for reading and copying) itself (to legally exclude some text posted here from public access other measures are needed instead). Still, I consider it to be a user's right to change the presentation of his post on SE (to the limits allowed by SE), and deletion/undeletion to be a part of presentation (as by original posting he already granted all right to read and copy).

   For a post author, I consider it be better to edit his post like this:

   I changed my opinion. Because […]. (Better read <link to somebody else's answer>.) Still I include the original text just for your convenience:

   _{Small (and possibly stroke-through) text goes here.}

   Maybe we should encourage users to do that (instead of deletion). But not enforce. BTW, the users might do it themselves in public beta (maybe they just go short way while private beta).

TL;DR: The links you provided explain legal aspects and excuse a moderator (or power user) for undeletion in really-needed cases. They should not act as argument for moderator's autocracy/arbitrariness; “intervene as less as possible” — that's my position.