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I gave this response to a question.

How do I get my mother to use the bathroom?

My response was deleted with this message from a moderator.

Answers should suggest concrete actions based on research or personal experience, and include those as back up for the suggested actions/interpersonal skills. So, edit your post and add either research or your personal experience (how did you do the things you're suggesting OP should do, under what circumstances, and how did that work out for you?). You can then flag for moderator review/undeletion

The question said that the person's mother was peeing in a bowl in the middle of the night because she was too lazy to go downstairs and use the bathroom.

The situation in this question is probably so uncommon that chances of finding people on this site who have experienced this exact situation is probably close to zero. Requiring an answer based on personal experience makes the question virtually unanswerable.

I see that the top voted answer doesn't include any mention of personal experience or research or citations. Yet it wasn't deleted.

My suggestion was to replace the bowl with a basket. Its common sense that most baskets (unless specifically designed to do so) don't hold liquid. I don't think I need research to support that. Also, it seems pretty straightforward that if the person's mother didn't have access to a container upstairs, they would have to go downstairs to pee.

When faced with a person with whom you can't negotiate, why is it invalid to simply make it physically impossible for the person to continue their offensive actions?

I am trying to figure out what logic was used to flag my answer for deletion.

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The logic used is explained in this question and answer pair. Simply put and summarized: the citation expectations weren't in place yet at the time the question was written and answered. New answers to old questions however have to meet those citation expectations, regardless of the quality of other answers to the same question.

Also note that this is a site for Interpersonal Skills, and as such questions (and answers) should be focused on the behaviors used to interact with others and achieve certain goals. Simply replacing a bucket with a basket is more of a workaround than an actual interpersonal skill that'll help OP in their interactions. More on that can be read at What to do with answers that aren't related to interpersonal skills?

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  • That's what I didn't see. The original question had been asked quite a while ago.
    – user4574
    Commented Dec 23, 2022 at 1:11
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    Regarding the character of my answer, I would argue that being good at finding ways to make it physically impossible for people to engage in unwanted behavior is a valid strategy for dealing with them. If my neighbors' dogs are using my yard as a bathroom, putting up a fence is a valid solution. If I don't want my kids touching something unhealthy/dangerous, placing it out of sight and out of reach is a valid solution. If salespeople are calling me too much, blocking their number works. Not all people are reasonable, and not all solutions to interpersonal problems are found through talking
    – user4574
    Commented Dec 23, 2022 at 1:24
  • @user4574 No one ever said all solutions have to be 'found through talking'. And knowing when to stop talking and look for other solutions/stay out of danger might be an interpersonal skill. The way you do so though... not so much. There are definitely answers on this site that point out that eventually you might need to give up as you can't mind-control other people, no matter how great your skills are.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Commented Dec 23, 2022 at 7:31
  • But, what you do after giving up trying to resolve a situation through interactions doesn't make for great answers. It leads to situations where everyone has 'funnier' ways of creatively resolving the situation without interaction, and drowns out the 'interpersonal skills' aspect of the site. A bit like the situation described at ips.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1747. My personal favorite example to use is that a perfect murder could be 'the answer' to a lot of questions here. Or just telling people not to interact at all. Have you tried jQuery?
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Commented Dec 23, 2022 at 7:31

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