Many of us know that in order to get an API key with extra privileges (such as write access or higher rate limits), it's necessary to have a question here, and as such this site allows users to post "placeholder" questions to get these privileges for keys for programs that are still under development.
Now, many questions (both placeholders and released programs) could end up getting downvoted for whatever reason (people disagree with the app's premise, they don't think it's worth coding, Tim Post lost his keys, etc.). There's an automated process that runs on all sites which deletes all questions with scores -1 or lower that are older than 30 days and which don't have any answers. This makes sense for Q&A sites - a question that isn't received well and doesn't have any answers is probably not a good fit for the site. However, here on Stack Apps, it has the side effect of revoking privileges for a key for the program the author's working on.
In my opinion, a user's program development shouldn't be stifled just because one of the above things happened. A key's expanded privileges should only be revoked if the user breaks the API's rules - if the rules are being followed, there's no reason to revoke them. Users can disagree with an app's development, but shouldn't be able to unilaterally revoke one's API key's privileges, especially if there are some users who do support it but not enough to outweigh the disagreers.
One way to work around this is by posting "placeholder" answers. As questions with answers aren't subject to being deleted under the aforementioned system rule, this will prevent the question from being automatically deleted. However, one such placeholder answer was deleted today - after the question author who posted it appealed its deletion to the moderator, they upheld their prior decision and insisted that the general SE rule against non-answers applies here.
However, given the above, should we make an exception to the normal rule that such placeholder answers shouldn't be deleted? After all, the site does allow placeholder questions created for the purpose of working around the system rule (of requiring a post for an elevated key), so not allowing it for answers doesn't make much sense (placeholder posts as a whole should be either altogether allowed or disallowed).
Second, if such an exception is not to be made, what can a user do if their post for a key is automatically deleted? Should they repost the question every time it gets deleted? That doesn't seem like a good solution, especially since it causes disruption every 4-5 weeks (30 days plus 0-6 days for the weekly script to run). Should they request the first question be undeleted and locked (the latter part being necessary to prevent the system from immediately re-deleting the question)? That's also not a great solution, since none of the provided lock reasons apply in this circumstance. Should we request that the system rule be removed from this site (not without precedent, as a different system rule, a weekly script that deletes year-old unanswered questions with zero score, has been removed from both here as well as all meta sites)?
The moderator who deleted the answer mentioned in the paragraph above with links said that the author should post a substantive answer with a progress update on the program's development or how it's running to prevent the question from being deleted. However, this isn't an ideal solution, especially if the question itself is a placeholder or the nature of the program is such that progress updates cannot be shared. It also goes against the general SE policy that progress updates (toward finding an answer to the question) shouldn't be posted as answers but instead as edits to the question - if we insist on following general SE policies here, then this is one that should also be followed.
