After searching for some information, I found a question, where the (current) accepted answer has a link to a deleted question. Someone with more than 10k reputation fixed this by putting a link to the cached version on

Is it legit to bypass the deletion by linking a deleted question with a web cache (either Google or Web Archives)?

Not just someone with >10k, it was the original poster of the answer, in response to someone else editing it out. (Just fyi) –  grgarside Jul 4 at 8:41
I was told once that links to web cache are blocked by some corporate firewalls –  gnat Jul 4 at 18:41

1 Answer 1

And that's exactly why link-only answers are such a bad idea/practice. The correct thing to do here is to take the (relevant) content from the deleted answer and put it in the currently visible answer. That way the information survives on its own rather than being dependent on the existence of another site.

Having said that, this particular thread is terrible it deserves to be removed. We do not want list recommendation questions and we certainly don't want link-only opinion based answers to list recommendation questions. This thread is the perfect proof for why.

Indeed, the question does not respect StackOverflow guidelines but my question was for any good question/answer on S.O which can reference to another answer for reference (and not a "link-only" answer). –  Maxime Lorant Jul 4 at 8:40
Well, don't just link to external information without at least quoting the gist of it in the answer - applies to every answer. :) –  deceze Jul 4 at 8:42

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