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As I have visited SE sites over the past N years, I have noticed again and again that some questions get pushed up to the “newest” or “active” feeds (which I default to watching), but when I click on them I find that they are not only old topics, but often there does not appear to be any evidence on the page of why it was bumped.

Today’s example (that precipitated this question) was Why did Hermione fall in love with Ron from 2014. The last apparent modification to that page was a comment added in 2018.

When I click the “modified today” link at the top... nothing happens.

Sure, the URL changes, but it doesn’t appear to reference anything on the page. Sometimes it does, and I presume that its function is exactly to find what changed on the page, but often, as with today’s Harry Potter page, it does not.

What’s going on? Why do I see these?

(If it helps, I have reputation enough to see deleted posts, so if that were the modification I presume I’d see it, and AFAIK deleting comments does not bump a page’s visibility, though I do not actually know these behaviors to be fact in all cases.)

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If you look at the Active Questions view, you'll see that the last modification of the post was by an unregistered user Roman, who has no visible activity (at least not visible to me) and does not appear as a creator or editor of any of the non-deleted posts on that page.

Presumably, that user posted an answer to it which has since been removed. (They appear to have edited it prior to removal.) I do not know why it wouldn't show up for you, though.

@Makyen has pointed out in comments that you are unable to see the deleted post because you do not have the required 10,000 reputation on the Science Fiction & Fantasy site.

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  • Ah, it may have been spam that lingered long enough to trigger the bump then. Commented Oct 4 at 22:55
  • @Y.A. Yep, happens all the time. I especially see it on MSE, oddly enough. Commented Oct 4 at 22:58
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    Just confirming, the most recent modification was from a deleted answer. It was deleted for reasons other than spam, FWIW. Commented Oct 4 at 23:03
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    Dan, the OP doesn't have enough rep on Science Fiction & Fantasy to see deleted posts (despite their belief that they have enough rep for that privilege), so is not shown the deleted answer. Commented Oct 4 at 23:04
  • Thanks, that clears up a lot. Mayken, I indicated that I do not know for sure if my view deleted posts reputation carried to all SE sites (because I don’t care). @all, this leads to a followup possibility — why bother bumping posts with (what sounds like) moderator deleted content? Commented Oct 4 at 23:20
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    The bump happens because an answer was posted; the process doing the bumping can’t predict the future and can’t possibly know an answer that caused a bump is going to be deleted later. (And it’s currently not coded to go back and fix bumps that turned out to be wrong, possibly because answers aren’t expected to be deleted. Commented Oct 5 at 1:19
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    @AaronBertrand Indeed, bumping the post is useful precisely so that the answer that should be deleted gets noticed (and reported, and acted upon) ASAP. Commented Oct 6 at 0:34

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