I'm a very new user, I'm discovering Stack Overflow's UI and features; and I have a question:

I wanted to comment, and instead I've answered this post : Finding if substring is in string recursivly

So, are people who left comments on my deleted answer still able to read my edits, or am I writing to /dev/null (when I'm not logged I cannot see my answer)?

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I'd suggest you edit that to make it a real answer to the question, then flag to have it undeleted. Too many downvoted/deleted answers may result in an autoban. –  Won't Dec 6 '12 at 17:05
That happened because I didn't know the difference between answers and comments. Now I'm aware of how it works. And now I also can ask in the chatrooms before doing a mistake, since I have enough rep. But thanks for the warning :) –  7heo.tk Dec 6 '12 at 20:57
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2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Any user with at least 10,000 reputation (or devs/moderators) can read the deleted post.

If you have edited your post such that you feel it no longer deserves deletion you can flag the post, use the "other" reason, explain that you feel it deserves to be undeleted as a result of your changes, and it will be evaluated by a mod.

Currently your post would most likely not be undeleted if you flagged it. Even with your edits it's still just a comment, not an answer. The fact that you don't have enough reputation to post a comment doesn't mean you should post it as an answer, it means you should wait until you do have enough reputation to comment.

If you would like to discuss why some moderation action was taken, such as why a post was deleted, why a question was closed, etc. you should post a question here on meta, you should avoid such discussions in comments/edits of posts themselves as it is offtopic there and distracts from answering the question.

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So, how were you able to read it, given that you don't have 10k reputation? Besides, I don't want the post to be undeleted, I don't really care of this post, what I wanted was to contribute to the discussion, not to annoy anyone. Also, it seem to be really difficult to understand for long-time users, but I really thought I was commenting. Since there is no text stating that I cannot comment, I assumed that short answers were automatically converted to comments. Thanks for your answer, btw. –  7heo.tk Dec 6 '12 at 15:32
@7heo.tk meta and SO have two separate reputation systems. On SO I have 19k reputation. –  Servy Dec 6 '12 at 15:35
Yeah, I just noticed that. Thanks. –  7heo.tk Dec 6 '12 at 15:40
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A deleted answer can be viewed by yourself and those users with at least 10K reputation points. Also, moderators and people who work for the site can view them, as you might expect.

I looked at your deleted answer, and saw that it was a case where you didn't have enough reputation to comment but wanted to contribute to the solution. Your approach was to post your comment as an answer, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid. Stack Overflow isn't a blog or a web forum. Only answers should be posted as answers.

I appreciate that you're trying to help, and you may feel like your'e caught in a kind of Catch-22 where you don't have enough reputation to contribute. Just be patient and contribute good questions and good answers. Before long you'll start accumulating enough rep to gain new privileges, including the ability to comment.

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Thanks for your answer. I never assumed that stackoverflow was a blog or a forum. I don't use either anyway. As stated above, I thought I was posting a comment. –  7heo.tk Dec 6 '12 at 15:37
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