The question Is there a deep, hot biosphere? attracted a troll recently who went on an all-out rant about sceptics in general and the question’s OP in particular.

Behind all the vitriol and tantrum-throwing it’s hard to spot that he actually has a point: the question’s premise is completely flawed. Thomas Gold never claims what the question says he claims; namely, that oil is produced by bacteria living in the earth’s mantle (in fact, his claim is almost completely the opposite).

The question has quite a few upvotes and an accepted answer so simply deleting or rewriting it doesn’t work (rewriting would invalidate the answer). What’s the best way to proceed?

It’s a pity that it needed a troll to bring this to attention. In fact, the situation could have been resolved much earlier if Ron Maimon had chosen a better way of writing up his (now deleted) answer which actually already explains all this – albeit in a very unaccessible format.

The question Is there a deep, hot biosphere? attracted a troll recently who went on an all-out rant about sceptics in general and the question’s OP in particular.

Behind all the vitriol and tantrum-throwing it’s hard to spot that he actually has a point: the question’s premise is completely flawed. Thomas Gold never claims what the question says he claims; namely, that oil is produced by bacteria living in the earth’s mantle (in fact, his claim is almost completely the opposite).

The question has quite a few upvotes and an accepted answer so simply deleting or rewriting it doesn’t work (rewriting would invalidate the answer). What’s the best way to proceed?

It’s a pity that it needed a troll to bring this to attention. In fact, the situation could have been resolved much earlier if Ron Maimon had chosen a better way of writing up his (now deleted) answer which actually already explains all this – albeit in a very unaccessible format.