Should we update rules in faq about deleting answers?

Question

In the faq it says that we need to delete published answers

When you post your question on the main site, edit the sandbox post to include a link to the challenge, removing everything but the title and the link. This is to keep the sandbox more compact and reduce the scrolling needed to view other proposals. Furthermore, delete the post. (You should edit it anyway, because high-reputation users can still see deleted posts.)

In the sandbox also said that we need to delete the answers after posting:

When you think your challenge is ready for the public, go ahead and post it, and replace the post here with a link to the challenge and delete the sandbox post.

After some researches I found these two questions:

• Should I delete my sandbox answers after posting the challenge?
• We Have a Messy Sandbox

where the community votes to delete the answers in sandbox after publishing:

Delete them

Sandbox posts are like comments, not something we need a permanent record of. For anyone who does want to look back through the history of how a question was sculpted before being posted, deleted answers are still visible to high rep users.

5. Delete posted challenges, keep abandoned.

But in reality a lot of people keep their answers in sandbox after publishing and everyone does it: low-reputed, high-reputed, moderator, etc.

Do not misunderstand me. I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just wondering what is the reason for this behavior? Because when the question is raised about whether answers should be deleted, almost everyone votes for "It needs to be deleted", and then they don't delete them so I'm little confused :)

I also found this question Are we still deleting sandbox posts? where we can see two diametrically opposed answers. Both of them have almost same count of votes which means that the community in general supports both

In my mind we have two options:

• Delete all posted answers (follow the rules)
• Keeps all posted answers (change the rules)

I understand that they are again two diametrically opposed options. But I think that we need statistic about how many users follow the rules and how many users doesn't. After that, we will not "choose" which is more correct, but obey the statistics (i.e. the majority)

Answer 1

Change the rules in the faq/sandbox

Answer 2

Promote editing down over deleting, discourage deleting, but make it clear it's allowed

First of all, deleting answers in the Sandbox doesn't save any space for 10k+ users if the answers aren't also edited down. So, the first thing that should be done to a posted proposal is that it be edited down into a stub, and I encourage people to edit such proposals down if the author doesn't do so in a reasonable amount of time.

Additionally, deleting answers in the Sandbox, while saving space for users with less than 10k reputation has a number of problems, as pointed out by Wheat Wizard. Namely,

• Feedback and editing histories of the question are hidden for a number of users
• It makes it a lot harder to search for duplicate/failed challenge ideas, as deleted answers are almost impossible to search for.

Therefore, I suggest we make it clear that people should definitely edit their answers down, and, while it isn't recommended, they are welcome to delete their posted proposals

Answer 3

Follow the rules in the faq/sandbox

Answer 4

Edit the rules to allow both deleting and not deleting sandbox posts

People should still be allowed to delete their sandbox posts if they want to.

I see the sandbox guidelines more as "Explaining to new people how we usually do things" rather than "Rules everyone should follow". Experienced users don't read the rules anyways so it's useless to try to change their behavior in this way.