The issues here are:
- Should the question have been closed as a duplicate?
- Should it have been locked?
- Can it be unlocked and reopened now to allow clarification?
- Can the question be deleted because the author regards it as looking silly?
Having read every edit and every comment (deleted or otherwise) here, in chat, on the question itself, and a later question, here are my views:
Yes. A question can be a duplicate, without being an exact duplicate. As currently written, the question is addressed by the linked answers. In addition, the title of the question is useful for people searching for answers to the this broad class of question. Note: closed questions cannot receive new answers.
Yes. There are 22 deleted comments, which easily justify locking to prevent further extended discussion. Note: Locked questions cannot be voted on, commented on, or deleted
On balance, I feel this is not the right course of action. The edit would almost certainly change the question fundamentally. Asking a new, more specific question seems more appropriate, perhaps with a self-answer to explain the specific results.
The thing preventing this question being deleted by the owner is the locked status (an unanswered question can be self-deleted). As noted above, I regard the lock as appropriate.
That said, my reading of all this is that while we desire good, searchable Q & A, we surely do not want people to feel embarrassed (even though there was probably ample opportunity to clarify the question before it was closed and locked).
I therefore propose a compromise solution, which will ensure the question title and body is still searchable, while removing any embarrassment felt by the original author:
- I will re-ask the question as Community Wiki, and immediately close as a duplicate and lock. The original question can then be deleted without loss to the site. If the original author wishes, he can then re-ask, and perhaps answer, the question he actually intended to ask*.
Please indicate your support or otherwise for this proposal by voting.
EDIT: The other option you have is to request deletion of your Database Administrators account.
* Though it may be a duplicate of this question as ypercube noted in a comment to the question above.
ORDER BY
.) That's why it was closed. – ypercubeᵀᴹ Sep 7 '15 at 7:40SELECT * FROM
and MySQL isn't using the primary key to do this. This is because InnoDB (BUT NOT MyISAM) uses a clustered primary key. So basically the primary key is a BTREE of the primary key columns with pointers to the rows. An index is a (structure) containing some columns and the primary key. In my example there was a covering index which could be read directly (not requiring any lookups) and thus was faster. In the absence of an order by MySQL was free to do this. At the time I was coming from MyISAM, also indexes that contain THE ENTIRE TABLE are rare. – Alec Teal Sep 7 '15 at 8:56