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So, I posted an answer that relied on a basic cultural understanding that you send flowers to people at funerals and it got deleted for "not citing an external source". I've since edited it to explicitly state that it's an ubiquitous understanding in Western Culture for my external source, so can it please be undeleted? What else could you have wanted me to do, to improve the answer to the point of reopening?

No, this isn't a duplicate of another question - I'm not asking why my Answer was deleted, because I know that. I'm directly asking the moderators to take action to undelete it.

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    I suggest you edit your post to be less accusatory. else it may unfortunately be removed
    – Alex Robinson
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:12
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    "I've since edited it to explicitly state [...] for my external source." I'm sorry, but you saying that something is true is not an "external source." If this is truly a cultural norm, surely it would be happening all the time in that culture. That should give you an abundance of instances to point to. Heck, if it's that much of a norm, you've probably seen it happen (or done it/had it happen to you), so you could probably add some personal experience here as a source. But saying "This is the norm. Do it." is not a valid source.
    – scohe001
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:14
  • Never use LMGTFY links on SE, for whatever reason.
    – CaldeiraG
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:16
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    "It's a ubiquitous understanding in western culture" -> 1. Saying that something is well known or common sense or any other "everyone knows this" is unhelpful for people who come here asking something. If everyone knew it, the OP wouldn't need to ask. 2. There is nothing in that question to indicate the culture, so you don't know if they are in a western culture or not. Something that's well known in western culture isn't helpful if it turns out the OP is in India
    – Rainbacon
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:20
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    Possible duplicate of Why did my answer get deleted?
    – CaldeiraG
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:21
  • @Rainbacon If the OP is in India, they should state that in the Question, because otherwise people will assume that this is in the West, because this is an English-language, American-owned web site.
    – nick012000
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:27
  • @scohe001 I can't add personal experience, because none of my family members have died, at least since I have been an adult, unless you're suggesting that I just flat-up lie about it.
    – nick012000
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:28
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    Surely you believe this to be a cultural norm because you've seen it somewhere, right? You must have some form of knowledge you're drawing from here. And if not, then, again, if this is a cultural norm, there are probably an abundance of sources for it online.
    – scohe001
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:30
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    @nick012000 although we require users to provide sources either of personal experience or literature citations, you may as well have encountered similar situations in which what you were offering worked, yet it wasn't about a closed one's death. Maybe? I come from a place where offering flowers to ease someone's pain is common, maybe you did it too for another reason than grief? This may be a personal experience backup for your answer.
    – avazula
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:35
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    The OP is not to blame for your, mine, or anyone else's assumption of where they live. Just because the site is hosted in the US and run in the English language does not give us a right to assume that the OP is western. If they don't tell us what their culture is, then we should not make assumptions. It's perfectly fine to let culture influence your answer, but you should caveat it with "this is a western cultural thing" and then give examples. Don't expect someone to know something if they've given you no indication that they would.
    – Rainbacon
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:36
  • @nick012000 If you want to learn how the site works, there's no need for such language. You're not using meta to learn, but to write subtle put downs or vent... which is not what meta is for. We're perfectly fine understanding you if you just ask what is needed to get your answer undeleted. However, that's not what you wrote. I've locked this to prevent you from editing this frustration into this post again.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:59

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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We require answers on IPS to provide backing up explanation as to why what you're suggesting in your answer would work in OP's situation. It helps in preventing usage of inadequate solutions to a given issue. This is why, as of now, neither I or the other mods could undelete your answer.

You say you don't want an explanation as to why your answer got deleted, so I won't provide more details on that (but in case you'd like to read more about the topic, the link I gave above should cover the topic). However, I'd like to express my feelings about something you said: you don't want your answer to become a "let me Google that for you" experiment. And I totally get that! It's not nice for anyone to paraphrase something that's already been said elsewhere.
I see you participate in other stacks among the network, so I hope I'm not wrong in assuming that you know that it may be difficult sometimes, to find the info you're looking for, either because it's a technical issue and you don't know how to express it or because it's a niche expertise and there's only scarce info about it online. Providing an external link to back up your claims is a way to help people who might have this exact issue of finding info on their problems that are hard to describe/too specific to find info about without having a deep knowledge of the subject.

Quick PSA as well: the community tends to quickly delete posts that miss backup so that it doesn't get heavily downvoted and that the answerer has plenty of time to provide the missing info without losing their rep.

One last thing: in order to get your answer as quickly undeleted as possible, feel free to raise a mod flag once you've edited it so that we can review it right away. Please let me know if there's anything unclear or if you need help with anything.

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  • Okay, added an external link to a Google search in my Answer, since LMGTFY is apparently verboten on Stack Exchange. Please undelete my answer now.
    – nick012000
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:59
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    @nick that's not really how this works. I see you're active on Academia. Would you use a link to a google search as a citation in an academic paper? Or in a class assignment? Treat this as you would that--people are looking for help and we're here to provide it in a professional manner.
    – scohe001
    Nov 14, 2019 at 15:04
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    @scohe001 No, but I might give them a link to one in the comments if someone posts something super-basic like "What are APA citations" on the Academia SE.
    – nick012000
    Nov 14, 2019 at 15:07

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