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Question closed and answer deleted. I am quite upset.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8687082/how-to-make-search-box-for-div-values/8687367#8687367

No comment on my flag. ONE person decided to delete. I have 10K+ rep by the way

Please give me some feedback on this. Thanks

UPDATE Changed the wording of the question and voted to re-open.

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  • 1
    I'm surprised that question was deleted. I think a little bit of editing could have helped it. I think OP was not a native English speaker, which made the question seem worse than it was.
    – Adam Rackis
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:31
  • Oh, great - an UNCOMMENTED down-vote. Kindergarden much?
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:34
  • @Adam Exactly. He is notoriously poor in asking questions, still an interesting one to me at least
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:35
  • 5
    Yeah - also, uncommented downvoting is common on Meta - it just means that someone disagrees
    – Adam Rackis
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:35
  • Don't take it so personally. A downvote just means that someone disagrees with you.
    – jwiscarson
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:36
  • Hehe - right on the heels of this question an answer of mine was sucked away to the abyss of codereview.SE :)
    – Adam Rackis
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:36
  • 6
    @mplungjan You have enough reputation and time here to know that you should not expect comments to down votes most of the time. Someone obviously disagrees that the question should not have been deleted. (I disagree, but didn't down vote here)
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:37
  • 6
    Question: bad. Answer: mostly code with little explanation. What's the fuss all about?
    – hammar
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:39
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    @Hammer - 1. Link to jQuery documentation 2) jsfiddle with code 3) copy of code into answer - that is pretty good in my book.
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:42
  • Michael, in reference to your update: you won't be able to reopen a deleted question.
    – Michael Petrotta
    Jan 2, 2012 at 23:54
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    One of the unintended consequences of our system is that answers to very very bad questions are rewarded almost unconditionally. Rosinante is dead on correct here -- if you want to do this it is your responsIbility, and in fact imperative, to improve the question too -- otherwise you risk deletion.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jan 3, 2012 at 4:44
  • 2
    For what it's worth, I think that rewriting really bad question is like trying to revive a dead man or in other words: pointless. Someone who can't ask proper questions will be shunned away by the community. At first I shared your ideas and ideals but over time learned how the community works and kind of accepted it.
    – Shadow Wizard Love Zelda
    Jan 3, 2012 at 8:25
  • I am sorry, I do not want to become one of the elitist shunners - I find it disgraceful when people are treated like that in any community. I do not work that way and will not accept it, hence this question whose comments clearly shows that I may be a minority :(
    – mplungjan
    Jan 3, 2012 at 8:36

2 Answers 2

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12

Feedback? Don't take it personally. It was a pretty good answer, indicative of your overall reputation.

But sometimes, good answers get thrown out with the bad questions to which they are a response. It sucks a little bit, but it helps keep the site better overall.

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  • It was a well researched and complete answer to an interesting situation - with the jsfiddle presented by the asker, it was completely clear what the issue was and finding and using jQuery grep to solve it felt really great since I had never heard of it before...
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:01
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    Agreed - it was a good answer but it is just feeding gift wrapped code to the OP, and because of that he'll do the same thing again.
    – slugster
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:03
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    @mplungjan - in that case, you should also have taken the time to improve the question so that everybody else could understand it too. Along with all that rep comes some almighty power and responsibility, including editing where it is needed.
    – slugster
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:06
  • I would love to. Never got the chance now did I?
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:32
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    @mplungjan You may not have had a chance to, but there were many hours between posting, closing, and deletion where someone could have done it. Ultimately, though, the question was so bad that I think you were reading minds a little bit to figure out what it really was.
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:34
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    @mplungjan You can still edit deleted posts. Ultimately, if you want to save your answer, you might want to put in the effort to edit the question into shape and make it meaningful (since you seem to understand what the OP wants). If no one is willing to put the effort in salvaging content, especially those who have a stake in it, then there is no point in whining :)
    – Lorem Ipsum
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:41
  • @Yoda I was not aware that it was worth my while to edit a closed AND deleted question. Please see my update
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:48
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    @mplungjan You always take a risk spending time/effort editing a low quality post. The further on the process it is, the more risk. But if the answer is that important to you, edit and flag/vote to undelete.
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:50
  • Done. Off to bed. Thanks for the feedback, those of you who bothered giving it and not just down-voting the question without a comment.
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:52
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    @mplungjan - Hey man, I didn't downvoted you, but on meta it is really different than the other SE sites, don't take personally, it just means that somenone disagrees with you, and that's all
    – Lamak
    Jan 2, 2012 at 22:00
  • Thanks Lamak. I disagree with that rudeness. But so be it.
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 22:01
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    @mplungjan Never got the chance to edit? You answered the question two days ago and it was only deleted 9 hours ago. There was plenty of time in between.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Jan 2, 2012 at 22:13
  • In was answered over Xmas/new year and closed by one person and then deleted. Normally it takes 4 people. Also I normally go to SO daily but for some reason my family requested more of my time these days.
    – mplungjan
    Jan 3, 2012 at 5:30
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The question is awful. So awful, that I don't think that it's at all clear that your very interesting piece of writing is an answer to it. Questions have to be understandable on their face. It's very nice of you to go read code in a jsfiddle to figure out what the OP was, in fact, asking about, but that doesn't make the question worthy to stick around.

Your comments indicate that you like to be nice to people with linguistic challenges. It's certainly nice of you to make the assumption of linguistic challenge rather than sloth. The moral of this story, I think, is this: if you want to help such a person, your first task is to edit the question so the community can read it, and then answer it.

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    Definitely; a question should be understandable on it's own. What happens if the fiddle is gone in a week (month, year...) and the question is still there? +1
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:25
  • With an outstanding answer expressing what OP was asking the question could have been edited.
    – Adam Rackis
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:32
  • It was understandable to me, and the answer showcases what the question was, fiddle or no fiddle
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:33
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    But that would have required other people to go read the off-site material to convince themselves that is was, indeed, expression what the OP was asking about. That's unreasonable.
    – Rosinante
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:33
  • Not unreasonable to me. But I know I am one of the nicer people at SO who allows non-native speakers with poor question skills to ask questions and get them answers... Sigh
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:39
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    If an answer is posted requiring an external link to understand it, I tend to flag it for deletion as not an answer.
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:39
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    It's probably worth noting that the closer of the question was an SE employee, and the deleter is none other than The Founder. I'm afraid that the moral of this story is that if you want to be this nice to people who post bad questions, put effort into editing the questions first.
    – Rosinante
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:40
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    @mplungjan There are tens of thousands of questions here from non native English folks which are easy/possible to understand.
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:40
  • @Andrew - link to jQuery docs. code used posted in answer too... No need to go anywhere.
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:43
  • @AndrewBarber I know this guy. Trust me he does not know enough English to write better questions
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:49
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    @mplungjan So either he needs an "angel" to regularly edit his questions, or this may not be the site for him.
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 2, 2012 at 21:51
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    And he has.... Yours truly ;)
    – mplungjan
    Jan 2, 2012 at 22:05
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    @Rosinante Just to clarify a bit... I'm not actually employed by SE. I'm just a moderator like all the others. :)
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Jan 3, 2012 at 3:00
  • @AnnaLear and here I thought I had missed a "valued associate" announcement! ;)
    – Andrew Barber
    Jan 3, 2012 at 5:15
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    @Anna: but you are valued. :) I think mplungjan has improved the question enough that I wanted to vote for undelete and reopen, but because a moderator did the delete, I can't even cast my vote. :(
    – sarnold
    Jan 3, 2012 at 5:23

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