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This question was asked by Kit, an answer was given by Willie Wong a short time later, and immediately after that, Willie Wong added a comment to his answer. That's all the activity I see on this question. Nevertheless, on the list of active questions it says (right now) that the question was modified by Geoffrey Jones 16 hours ago. How can this happen? (I think I saw this strange behaviour before, but I don't remember the question.)

EDIT:

Jukka's answer made me understand this. So it's not really a bug, but probably by design. Somehow I would like it if the software would not only remove the answer but also the recent edit marker. The only benefit of leaving the "recent edit by Geoffrey Jones" in the above example is for those few who saw the answer and then saw it disappear. This benefit is rather temporary ...

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    I guess the whole idea of showing all activity on the front page is this: nobody can secretly vandalise the site. I guess a somewhat plausible scenario would be this: someone's password gets stolen, and the vandals start to delete his answers to old questions; without front-page updates, this would happen completely unnoticed.
    – Jukka Suomela
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 9:40
  • OK, that's indeed a benefit, thanks.
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 9:46
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    @Henrik: It's best to see that not as "last modified" but "last activity". The former phrasing makes sense only for the site developers.
    – Charles Stewart
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 10:02

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Usually this happens in the following case: someone writes an answer and deletes it.

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  • Depending on which view you are looking at, this can be happen with deletion of comments as well.
    – Charles Stewart
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 10:03
  • @Charles Stewart: That's interesting! And I have no idea what view you are talking about. I only know about the "active" version that only tells me about recent questions and answers.
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 12:02
  • @Hendrik: Edits to the question or answers also count. Adding or removing comments also bumps the question on the active view, but only for comments attached to the main question. I think that the hot views track all comments.
    – Charles Stewart
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 12:23
  • @Charles: I don't see that behaviour. Edits do count, yes, but I never saw a comment bump a question. And I never understood the "hot" view. At the moment, Taco's question on meta is "hottest". Why?
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Oct 30, 2010 at 14:46

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