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A while ago, I posted a question on Stack Overflow about C++ pointers, and it was closed as "off-topic", apparently due to a lack of research effort (which is ironic, since it was a poorly written, yet on-topic question). Subsequently, I searched for the question and found that it appeared to no longer exist, despite the fact that I had gotten a couple of very helpful answers to that question. I'm still not sure whether my question was deleted. If I post a question that is subsequently deleted, will I ever be notified of its deletion?

EDIT: It turns out that I was mistaken: the question still exists. Still, I want to know whether editors are ever notified of the deletion of their questions.

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I think it's unfortunate that my poorly-researched question was apparently deleted, considering how many helpful answers I had gotten from the Stack Overflow community for that question. :/ –  Anderson Green Mar 12 '13 at 3:02
It turns out that the question still exists. I'm still not sure why it was closed as "not constructive", though. stackoverflow.com/questions/14206600/… –  Anderson Green Mar 12 '13 at 3:12
I assume you're talking about this question? If so, please edit the link into your question. –  nickb Mar 12 '13 at 3:13
@nickb That's the same link that I just posted here. –  Anderson Green Mar 12 '13 at 3:14
I believe your original link was to a search query, and you edited in the correct link. Still, I would add the link to this question's text so people seeing this question for the first time have it. Also, if you're interested in a discussion on why the question was closed, such discussion wouldn't be appropriate in your current question, which is asking about getting notifications for deleted questions. –  nickb Mar 12 '13 at 3:17
You'll be interested in this feature request: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2645/… –  bfavaretto Mar 12 '13 at 4:08
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2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Unless a moderator deletes it and decides to tell you about it, no.

You get notified if your question is answered, if a comment is posted on it, or if someone edits it - otherwise, nothing. By the time a question is deleted, it's usually too late to do anything about it anyway (you can try to convince folks to undelete it, but you'll probably have to have a pretty good argument).

If you don't want it to be deleted, you're best off correcting whatever problem led to it being closed and then asking for it to be reopened.

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Still, I think that this feature would be useful to implement - users wouldn't want to spend hours searching for one of their questions, only to find that it had been deleted (and was therefore inaccessible). –  Anderson Green Mar 12 '13 at 3:25
Well, you shouldn't have to spend hours searching - if you asked it, it should be linked to from your profile. Regardless, notifying someone that they won't be able to find something in the future isn't likely to help much there, unless they're good at remembering such things. I suspect it'd just be kind of a downer. –  Shog9 Mar 12 '13 at 3:32
It would be nice if users could view questions they'd asked which had been subsequently deleted (while keeping those questions hidden from the rest of Stack Overflow), but I'm not sure if this feature is currently implemented. –  Anderson Green Mar 12 '13 at 3:39
I think it would be interesting to try something like recently proposed 48h grace period for deleted posts - it seems to strike a tempting balance between keeping things as is ("not notified") for posters who don't care and providing an unobtrusive opportunity to learn / recover for those who worry –  gnat Mar 15 '13 at 18:59
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You should know the answer... did you get one? No.

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I'm still not sure if it was deleted - it's possible that I simply forgot the question's correct title, and couldn't find it for that reason. –  Anderson Green Mar 12 '13 at 3:09
@AndersonGreen, anyway, as much as I'm aware of, you don't. –  user209407 Mar 12 '13 at 3:11
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