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I answered Ubuntu 15.04 flashes log-in screen then black:

My honest answer.. remove Ubuntu 15.04 - uninstall it - its not up to scratch, I had so many problems with 15.04, nearly lost all my personal data luckily livecds are amazing, I never fixed the many problems I ran into. Wait about 12 months and 15.04 should be amazing!

And my answer was deleted with the comments:

Please don't add comments as answers. Invest some time in the site and you will gain sufficient privileges to upvote answers you like, or to add actual comments when seeking clarification of any issues. If you have a new question please ask it. – fossfreedom♦ 1 hour ago

My answer was not a comment, I did not want to upvote other answers and I did not need 'clarification of any issues' nor did I need to ask a question on the subject. My answer was clear and a good answer, I think. It seems my answer was disliked by the moderator because my answer was to unistall Ubuntu 15.04.

Could someone please explain why my answer was deleted as the comments above just do not justify deletion?

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  • 2
    It would be rather helpful if you could provide the contents of your answer as most users won't have access to it.
    – user364819
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 19:31
  • 3
    In 12 months, 15.04 will have reached end of life and won't be supported.
    – muru
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 19:39
  • Related: meta.askubuntu.com/questions/11710/…
    – muru
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:44
  • @muru I didnt say reinstall .. I said uninstall.
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:50
  • 1
    @jamiejackherer same thing: doesn't solve the problem.
    – muru
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:52
  • The problem is basically 'ubuntu 15.04 will install - but wont work' unistalling will fix the problem, given the chance I could have edited the answer to include 'and install 14.04 or other linux system that will work well with the hardware available'.
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:58

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I'm trying to be honest and fair here. Don't see this as me piling on, rather look at it and understand how moderators (and the community here) do things and learn from it.

There were several problems with your answer,

  • You don't explain how to do what you're asking them to do. That is one of the most basic requirements for answers here. Even just a link to another answer on the site would have made it better. Full instructions are best.

  • Uninstalling can be harmful. If you leave them to format things, that can mean data loss. They could install 14.04 over the top (or some hybrid) or backup and fresh-install, but you left zero instruction. We have to be careful about what we tell users to do. Even if this user is technically competent (they seem it) the next ten users might wipe their computers and lose a lot of data.

  • Bits are technically untrue. Normal releases rarely get the sorts of bug fix you're talking about post-release and in "12 months" 15.04 will be long-dead. Non-LTS releases are only supported for 9 months so it'll actually be end-of-life in January 2016.

  • Past your anecdotal experience —on different hardware, I assume— there is no evidence your suggestion will help them at all. It's a blind guess. And while there are many try-it-and-see answers that we do tolerate, yours comes at a steep cost.

  • If nothing else, "use something else" is going to be the default position for somebody who can't get a version of Ubuntu working. That's all the deductive process leaves. There's simply no reason for your answer to exist.

    If you want to argue that you're just telling them to uninstall Ubuntu (and not using something else), we're back to it being half of half an answer, still without evidence to suggest it'll do them any better than fixing the issue, still without any instruction or safety warning.

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Disclaimer: I'm not a mod, so just giving you my POV:

The OP (Original Poster) just bought a car and has some trouble with it and asks how to proceed.

Your answer is: "Get rid of the car! It's a piece of junk!"

So I would have acted the same way as the moderator: Not because your answer is as rude my example here above, but because it helps the OP as much as the (kinda, not very) piece of junk answer; not because it's a bad answer!

For the future, if you don't have a tested solution to the problem, find some other problem you know a lot about where the OP might go:

Wow!

;-)

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  • I'm confused, I followed the basic rules. My answer is a fairly good quality answer.
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:30
  • @jamiejackherer "Wait about 12 months and 15.04 should be amazing!" - flat out false. The rest of your answer is just whining, and not a solution.
    – muru
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:35
  • 1
    @jamiejackherer: it's not a bad answer, it's just not ... very helpful? That's all... Too bad you had a mod's hammer come down on you... What normally happens is that 5 different people leave comments (or upvote existing comments), so you have time to ask people what's going on.
    – Fabby
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:35
  • @muru: Give the guy a break! He's a rep 13 user... I remember when I was rep13! I had no effing clue! You're just too smart compared to the rest of us, including me! :P ;-) (Please delete that comment) Pretty please???
    – Fabby
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:37
  • @fabby If the 'car' is a piece of junk then answering 'get rid, its a piece of junk' is a good answer, it relates to the question, its better than saying waste your time, money and life fixing a 'piece of junk'. The OP for (askubuntu.com/questions/623367/…) doesn't actually ask a question!! which is against the rules.
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:39
  • I felt the better option would be to uninstall 15.04 as it really does suck! Its a fair answer and it was different to other answers, it would be an option for the OP.
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:39
  • I defo feel like low rep users are disrespected on askubuntu, its making me dislike being on this site tbh.... :( If i come to ask a question now all im gonna think is 'whos gonna jump on me now?' 'am i gonna be banned any minute for asking questions on a q&a site.... not feeling comfortable here
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:41
  • @jamiejackherer: You can edit your comments; no need to put 3... :P You're new, as was I once upon a time. Come back in one year and read this again and you'll facepalm yourself! It's not a very good answer... It's worthy of deleting. Look at some of the other highly upvoted answers out there and try to aim for the same quality... And I was young and dumb too, but the young is a very long time ago. Dumb is an on-going process for me... ;-)
    – Fabby
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:42
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    @jamiejackherer if the car is a piece of junk, then yes. Yet there are people using it without problems, so clearly it's not a piece of junk for everyone.
    – muru
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:43
  • @muru the OP said 'After weeks of struggling with various black/purple screens'. After weeks of a system not working and multiple installs of previous versions and new installs its not worth all that for Ubuntu 15.04 which is not that amazing anyway.. I like ubuntu .. just not 15.04
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:47
  • @jamiejackherer Yet the OP chose to struggle. So clearly they were interested in using 15.04, or actually solving the problem. Whether you think it is amazing or junk is pretty much irrelevant.
    – muru
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:51
  • @jamiejackherer: Good! Do like me then and stick to 14.04 questions (which is what I'm running too until 16.04 comes out! >:-)
    – Fabby
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:51
  • @Fabby I still have 15.04 on a HDD partition, it broke during an upgrade and i cannot fix it because everything i tried failed. So now its just storage space and Im currently using Kali 2.0, without a single problem yet..
    – jamiejackherer
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:54

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