What should I do after posting an inappropriate question?

Question

I have realized that I posted a question which was not suitable on the website. What should I do?

Answer 1

First, make sure that the question is really not suitable.

If you are sure that it is not suitable, then it is better to do something about it than just leave it as it is. There are five options: edit, delete, vote to close, flag, and leave a comment.

Edit a question

If you can change the question so that it is suitable, please edit it.

But please do not edit one question to a completely unrelated question! It is better to keep different questions separate.

Delete a question

You can delete your own question if you are a registered user of the website and the question has not received an answer. (For the precise conditions when you can and cannot delete your own post, see “When can’t I delete my own post?” in this post on Meta Stack Overflow).

Deleted questions do not appear in lists of questions (including your own profile page), and most non-moderator users cannot read deleted questions.

For some reason, when you click “delete” link of your question, the system asks “Vote to delete this post?” suggesting that you are merely voting to delete instead of deleting, but this is probably just a glitch in the system; if you click “Yes,” the post is deleted immediately.

Vote to close a question

You can cast a close vote to your own question if your reputation points is 250 or higher. See this page for an explanation of closure (not in the mathematical sense).

Flag a question for moderator attention

If none of the above helps and you need a help about usage of the website from moderators, please flag your own question for moderator attention. Please explain what help you need in the flag dialog box.

This page states that you need at least 15 reputation points to flag a post. I do not know if this applies also to flagging your own post.

Leave a comment

You can always post a comment on your question. Even when you cannot delete, vote to close, or flag, and you cannot think of a way to edit the question so that it becomes suitable, it is probably better to leave a comment that you are aware that you posted an inappropriate question. In addition, if you need some help about usage of the website and you cannot flag the post, posting a comment might get some user’s attention.