Please delete my answer again

Question

Today I saw that a moderator has removed the most important part of this answer of mine for the question below:

Was Hazrat Ali (RA) born inside the kabba with the walls cracked?

and then undeleted and locked the answer!

Now I want to ask why I should not be able to edit my own answer anymore, but you moderators can?

Actually this new answer is not MY answer to the question anymore, well it might be yours but not mine.

So please unlock the post or roll back your edition and delete it again. I feel more comfortable in that case.

Then you are free to post your own answer. But PLEASE stop making your desired answers out of other users' posts.

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EDIT

Well, now I see the moderator has made my answer Community Wiki to prove this is not mine anymore. Happy to see them this much engaged :)

Answer 1

The collaboratively edited part of the FAQ seems out of context here. It's suitable for things where minor edits are required to correct an answer. Like if someone posted a bit of code and had a typo in there.

That was a politically charged question and answer - there are no 'right' answers with these, only facts and points. Someone shouldn't be allowed to edit out someone's points. If it was offensive, it should be deleted. If it was wrong or slightly incorrect, it should be edited.

But it shouldn't be edited to say something that the author didn't mean to say and then locked. If the author refuses to use those edits, then it should be deleted. It's wrong to have someone's name on something they don't wish to say.

But Ezati's current answer looks fair and not as 'attacky' as the previous one.

Answer 2

The other moderator will take care of your wish. What you refer to as the most important part of the answer is actually 1) needlessly antagonistic, 2) irrelevant to the question and 3) not in the spirit of SE guidelines. Answer posts are not the place to challenge other people to prove something. This is why we decided to edit and keep the post rather than delete it entirely.

I know I said in my comment on your post that you were free to keep the answer as it was, but those were early days and before we crystallized policies on sectarianism, plagiarism, etc.

Answer 3

The post was edited to make it less argumentative. The Stack Exchange model was designed to promulgate laser-focussed answers to specific questions, not a site for arguing and debate. Unnecessary rhetoric and protracted arguments typically just makes finding the actual answers difficult if not impossible.

As an answer that is not only highly-voted but also accepted, it has not only demonstrated value, but it is also representative of the site. Simply editing it to make it fit with our model is far preferable to deleting it.

I am not the one who locked the post, but as you have rolled back exactly the same edit in the past, I agree with the decision. It had been suggested to you earlier to bring the matter to meta for a community discussion so you could better work within community norms, but in the intervening year you chose neither to do so nor to make any attempt at improving your answer.

Even if the post was unlocked, you still would not be able to delete your answer because it's already been accepted. Unless you can convince the question author to revoke his accept, deleting can only be done with the aid of a moderator.

And so far, your only argument for deleting is that you don't like the idea that it's been edited. The edits don't in any way affect the actual answer, it merely makes it less argumentative and more suitable for the site we're trying to build here; this is something that any user can do, and in many cases is expected to do, and is a fundamental part of the Stack Exchange model. From the help centre:

If you are not comfortable with the idea of your contributions being collaboratively edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you.

The fact that you consider the edited lines to be "the most important part" of your answer suggests you don't really understand how the Stack Exchange model works. Similarly, rather than attempting to discuss the issue here in any constructive manner, you simply demanded that exactly one of two options be enforced: Reversion, or deletion. However, until you can demonstrate that either,

• The community feels the edited-out lines actually provide any value to the answer and it's ability to answer the question, or
• The community feels that deleting a highly-voted and accepted answer actually has any benefit at all,

then neither option seems viable, and as a moderator there really is nothing I can do about it.

I am more than happy to unlock the post so the community can continue to work with it, but if you insist on simply reverting the edit with absolutely no regard for anything else, it will simply be locked again and more drastic measures may need to be taken.