User removed : points lost ok but what was the question?

Question

When I look at the points status, it shows points removed due to user removed.

Ok, I follow that, but could we have a link to the question that we made the effort to answer either just for interest or to be able to re-use the efforts of our answer?

Answer 1

This is something beyond the means of the site and us moderators. It would have to be something which SE would need to implement. I have a feeling the reason why you cannot see it is because a user can be "removed" for one of two reasons.

1. Wrong doing on the site. If they are messing things up for any of several reasons, the user name/information can be "destroyed" which basically removes all trace of them. The information is pretty much not there anymore.
2. User asks to be removed. In this case anonymity of the user (and I think this is the big thing) is important. If someone goes onto a Stack, participates for a little bit by voting and possibly Q/A-ing a couple of times, then they want their account deleted from that particular Stack for any given reason, if the information you are looking for were easily found, a person could track them down on another Stack and harass them. While this may seem a little far fetched, to me it is a real concern. They have their reasons for wanting their account deleted from a particular stack, they have the right to not be bothered about it.

Also, just because the user was removed, their contributions were not removed and neither were yours if you answered their question. If you look under some questions, I believe it says "user was removed" or it just says "userxxxx" greyed out. While their votes were removed from your Q/A, any contribution they've provided as far as Q/A is not (I'm pretty sure this is the deal; I'm pretty sure Nick or Bob will correct me if I'm wrong).

If you feel this is something you'd like to pursue, please ask this question over on Meta Stack Exchange. Meta is like this Meta, but for all of Stack Exchange (in case you were unfamiliar).

For your edification, you may want to read some of these posts ... one of them might cover it, though I didn't see the information about what you're specifically asking:

• What does "user was removed" mean and why did my reputation change because of it?
• Don't throw away all votes when a user is deleted
• More descriptive "User was removed" explanation
• Wiping votes on deletion of highly active accounts (-865 points on "User was removed")

Like I said, none of them directly reflect the question you're asking, but there may be something of interest on the subject.