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For quite a while now MO has been treated to missives posted from, it seems, a representative of the galactic government who would like to share knowledge of time travel. For those with enough reputation, a representative recent offering is at https://mathoverflow.net/questions/159619/obama-was-executed-by-our-most-fair-galactic-government-two-years-ago-the-person. These questions are pretty quickly deleted, which is absolutely the correct response. As important as galactic communication and time travel are, MO is not the right forum.

That said, to my eye these posts share a certain poetry, and it would be a shame for them to simply bitrot. Not having my own time box and UFO, I don't know a good way to gather them all together. Is there one?

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  • $\begingroup$ Similar task, I saved about 55 screen captures of that guy who was trying to crowdsource a conjecture in matrix theory without attribution. And there was a Dropbox with those, and the shell of a web page to show it all. But nothing ever really came of it. I suppose my advice is that the minimum effort for you is to save a text file with dozens of links; more effort is to save screen captures of ones you like as jpegs in some directory. $\endgroup$
    – Will Jagy
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 5:41
  • $\begingroup$ As a user with at least 10000 points you have access to moderation tools mathoverflow.net/tools where you in particular have a list of most deleted posts (see delete-tab and recently deleted, you can expand the list a bit but not by too much); self-deleted posts are not listed and possibly there are other exception, too, but most seem there. So monitor that list if you like. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 9:48
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    $\begingroup$ That being said I consider this question as mildly problemetatic: either OP wants to have "fun" in which case it might not be good to encourage or even acknowledge them in any way, or they have some serious problems in which case to make somehow fun of them seems also not really appropriate. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 9:49
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah, I agree with quid in his last comment. If you want my advice, I'd just copy and paste into a personal file you keep for this for your own entertainment (or however you wish to put it) as soon as you see it, because rest assured that I routinely delete them as soon as I am aware of them. This and other things, like posts with $\log \pi^\Omega$ in the numerator and whatnot. $\endgroup$
    – Todd Trimble Mod
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 11:50
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    $\begingroup$ Theo, that guy also posts on MSE often enough. I always regret missing those (on MO, anyway (until I gain 1,500 more points, anyway)). $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 13:52
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    $\begingroup$ Based on vixra links in one of the latest in this series, the poster is a repeat offender under a different name (see the March 21st entry here tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1296/crank-post-to-flag-as-spam ) who IIRC may have made intemperate threats against people on MO for closing his questions. I would agree with the last half of quid's comment (and all of Todd's) $\endgroup$
    – Yemon Choi
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 14:29
  • $\begingroup$ @Theo: dear Earthling, I agree that there is a certain comical poetry emanating from those posts... $\endgroup$
    – Georges Elencwajg
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 19:41
  • $\begingroup$ @Quid Re your second comment: that did cross my mind before asking here, although clearly I came to a different conclusion than you did. Re your first comment: I had forgotten about the moderation tools, and they certainly answer this question. So I hereby consider this question "answered" — Quid, if you'd like to leave that comment as an answer, I'll accept it. (In any case, I don't know if I'll actually try to compile anything, but I would probably enjoy it.) $\endgroup$
    – Theo Johnson-Freyd
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 20:27
  • $\begingroup$ @ToddTrimble I certainly hope you do continue to promptly delete the questions. And I hope my question here didn't indicate otherwise. $\endgroup$
    – Theo Johnson-Freyd
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 20:30
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    $\begingroup$ I expanded to an answer. Yes, I see how one can arrive at a different conclusion, too. At least in isolation I do not consider it as a significant problem. Yet, if this would catch on and people would start to compile some "worst of MO" or "strangest of MO" I think it would be unfortunate. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 20:58
  • $\begingroup$ If it is of interest to you, Theo: mathoverflow.net/questions/171765/… $\endgroup$
    – Todd Trimble Mod
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 14:42
  • $\begingroup$ @ToddTrimble Thanks! I've been away from MO, and didn't see your comment. $\endgroup$
    – Theo Johnson-Freyd
    Commented Jun 18, 2014 at 1:15
  • $\begingroup$ More poetry here: mathoverflow.net/questions/175992/… $\endgroup$
    – Todd Trimble Mod
    Commented Jul 13, 2014 at 3:37
  • $\begingroup$ Here's some more poetry: mathoverflow.net/questions/187622/… And here: mathoverflow.net/questions/187715/… $\endgroup$
    – Todd Trimble Mod
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 12:52

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For users that have at least 10k points it is possible to see (certain, recently) deleted posts via the moderation tools and more specifically the delete tab there.

Thus, as a user having enough points you can look through the list of deleted posts, enjoy the 'poetry' there, and you could also copy them somewhere else to make them accessible to others. [To be clear, I do not recommend or encourage doing this, rather the opposite, but it is technically possible and I assume, but do not quote me on this, compatible with licence and alike.]

Two points to note:

  1. The list is really only recently deleted. It can be expanded a bit, but unlike on MO 1.0 one does not get a complete list but really only recent ones. Thus, not to miss a new 'poem' you would have to check soewhat frequently.

  2. Not all deleted posts are shown there. I know self-deletions are not shown (rather not relevant for this case) and I think deletions done my moderators are not shown either (somewhat relevant for this case).

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  • $\begingroup$ IIRC moderator deleted posts do show up in the list. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 1:14
  • $\begingroup$ The post linked in OP did not show up, while it would have shown up by its age (then); and, that deletion invloved a moderator, and I would not know another reason it should not have shown up. In addition, posts deleted by a moderator cannot be undeleted by non-moderators. So there would be some logic to not showing thel in the first place. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 14:25
  • $\begingroup$ However it is true that some posts deleted by moderators do show up. Not sure now what happened then so I think you are right. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 14:30

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