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I saw that my answer to this question:

How to check whether a string contains a substring in JavaScript?

was deleted.

I did check the FAQ to see if I could figure out why, but I sincerely don't get it. It's an old answer that's been there for a couple of years now. My answer was the only one that addressed the actual bug in the question's code, short and to the point, without any link and answers precisely what's wrong with the code.

Is this the correct venue to ask for a clarification? It'd be nice to get a comment when something is deleted, so that you don't go wondering what you did wrong.

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  • There was already a comment on your answer posted about a year ago with 17 votes. Did you not see it? – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mar 5 '12 at 17:44
  • Clearly I'm in the minority as the "It should be a comment" comment had 17 votes, but I wouldn't have flagged your answer as "Not an answer" myself. The OP asked why the code wasn't working, and you provided one reason why it wasn't... (and there are even worse answers in the provided question). – Matt Mar 5 '12 at 17:51
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    Yes, I did see the comment. 30 people also found the answer useful. I am biased, of course, but even then I think it's a valid answer, albeit short. At least if all the "lesser" answers were deleted I could see a pattern, but like this... – Victor Mar 5 '12 at 17:57
  • True, that was just a prompt. I didn't vote on the comment as I hadn't seen your answer till now, but if I had seen the flag on your answer I would have left it alone myself. – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mar 5 '12 at 17:59
  • What flag? Ah, I see now you undeleted it, thanks a lot! Many thanks for your quick replies, too! – Victor Mar 5 '12 at 18:11
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Your answer is the result of a ninja edit by the OP (he asks why his indexOf() method doesn't work, which was not part of the original question), so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

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And then I deleted it again as a result of another flag.

The problem from our perspective is that, in the flag queue, it doesn't look like an answer. The formatting is collapsed and you're left with less than a single sentence. Due to the fact that it appears to be an answer when you view it in context, and that it has been deemed so by many upvotes (ugh, that's a slippery slope if I ever sledded down one), I've undeleted. Even so, we try to encourage answers to be more substantial than this nowadays.

Due to the fact that it it appears to be flagbait, I've edited to flesh it out. Hopefully that will prevent this from happening again.

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