<p>What is (or should be) the policy on deleting <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/self-study" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;self-study&#39;" rel="tag">self-study</a> questions after getting help?</p>
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<p><strong>Context.</strong><br />
This question is prompted by whuber's remark on someone's self-study question: <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/527230/155836">How would this Markov chain problem be solved?</a></p>
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<p>This is nearly the same problem as the one posted in your last several questions. Draw the diagram!</p>
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<p>I remember commenting on a previous question by the asker on this same topic, but I can't seem to find it. Its comments were rather lively, too. I suppose it was deleted, presumably by the asker. I don't know whether there are more deleted questions about Markov chains like it. It sounds like there are 'several'.</p>
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<p><strong>Opining.</strong><br />
It rubs me the wrong way that a self-study question would be deleted. After you've gotten help from the community, you prevent others from benefitting from the discussion. It also removes a bit of insurance against people asking, e.g., take-home exam questions: the instructors would no longer be able to find the question.</p>
<p>As far as I know, there is nothing to prevent someone from deleting their own question <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/25088/how-can-i-delete-my-question-on-stack-overflow">unless it has popular <em>answers</em></a>, but often self-study help happens as a series of comments. (Maybe we hope the asker will post an answer in the end, or maybe it happens too often that an 'answer' becomes the comment-magnet instead of the question itself.</p>
<p>When someone vandalizes a question that they've asked (instead of deleting it), it's often rolled back. Deleting doesn't put the question on the main page, so it's subtler. Still, can/should it be watched for?</p>
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<p><strong>Questions.</strong><br />
My question is, unfortunately, multipart:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is it indeed a problem to delete <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/self-study" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;self-study&#39;" rel="tag">self-study</a> questions after getting help, or is it just me?</li>
<li>If it is a problem, how do/should we dissuade or prevent this deletion?</li>
</ol>
