“Miscellaneous § Cleanup: Before Or After?”, Gwern2009-08-05 (; similar)⁠:

Misc thoughts, memories, proto-essays, musings, etc.

We usually clean up after ourselves, but sometimes, we are expected to clean before (ie. after others) instead. Why?

Because in those cases, pre-cleanup is the same amount of work, but game-theoretically better whenever a failure of post-cleanup would cause the next person problems.