Been awhile since I have been here, hope all is well.
I am curious past the very brief explanation given by the moderator and the generic stuff in the help section as to why an answer that clearly helps people was deleted? At the end of the day, isn't that why we are here??
At any rate, a broader explanation would be appreciated.
Thank you!
Answer in question: exhibit a
I was the moderator who deleted the answer; I should explain my reasoning.
The question comes from someone interested in cross-dressing who's asking about deflecting awkward questions he receives while making purchases (e.g. "Who are you buying these for?"). Your answer was
How do I deflect such questions politely and without public embarrassment?
If you're hesitant to lie and you don't want to be out and about with your clothing preferences, you could avoid this situation entirely by shopping in a LGBT area.
Doing this would allow you to avoid most ridicule or uncomfortable questions. This is not to suggest that you are or are not LGBT but these people are going to be much more accepting of you than say your local family outlet.
I believe you will find that, a shop that serves the LGBT community will also be well placed to advise, reassure, and most of all be non-judgmental.
A quick Google search of LGBT shops in your area should guide you as to where you might more comfortably shop.
Don't let other peoples perceptions of you rattle your karma, be who you are.
As I wrote in my comment - and as apaul has repeated - this isn't an interpersonal solution. It's a solution, but not the sort that this site is for. I've said this a lot to new users: Our URL is interpersonal.stackexchange.com, not imlookingforanysolutiontomyproblem.stackexchange.com. We aren't a general help site, and so, as we decided a long time ago, answers like this one are not suitable for the site. To be honest, my philosophy - and I think/hope others agree - is that answers should teach the asker an interpersonal skill. After all, that's our name.
I think some similarly barred answers might be
To be honest, your answer almost reminded me of a frame challenge (e.g. "How can I do X?" "Well, don't."), but such an answer would likely talk about why a given action would be considered rude or inappropriate - in other words, have a rationale that's based on interpersonal skills anyway.
I apologize for my brief comment; I thought it was self-explanatory enough, but in the future, I can elaborate more.
As mentioned, your answer was a well intended answer and potentially a very helpful response, but it wasn't really an interpersonal answer.
I've hit this issue and had a few of my own answers removed for this reason, it's always frustrating, but occasionally it's the right thing to do for the sake of the site. Individually these answers don't seem to cause problems, but it's easy to see the site sliding down a slippery slope where the majority of answers become non-interpersonal and that will likely lead to problems maintaining answer quality.
As in... if "avoid the issue entirely" or "try this non-interpersonal solution" become tolerated answers we're likely to see those answers on nearly every question. If you're familiar with workplace.se, their "Is 'Quit your job' an acceptable answer?" is somewhat similar.
In this specific case, I think your answer was valuable, and worth saving. I hope that you can edit in a more interpersonal approach, and keep your original answer as an aside.
