# Why is this spam?

I'm just curious, I was looking at this question with a view to answer it, and suddenly the Community bot deleted it for abuse/spam. It didn't seem like either; it was just a regular question. Does anyone know why?

(Possible duplicate of Why is this answer “spam or offensive”?, but I don't have the tools personally to determine if it's the same cause.)

The question used to read, immediately before deletion and censorship,

How on earth do you graph $$2 x^3 - 3 x^2 - 36 x + 7$$ by hand?

I found this equation in a maths textbook that asked me to graph it, so to do so I tried to factor it. I used two different online calculators that couldn't do it either.

But I graphed it on Mathematica on turns out you can graph it?

• It seems to me that you are mainly interested in this particular situation (i.e., it is not linked just as an example used to discuss a more general question). So probably the (specific-question) tag would be suitable here - see the tag-info. – Martin Sleziak Sep 30 '18 at 12:23
• @MartinSleziak You always manage to introduce me to a new meta tag every time, Martin! – Theo Bendit Sep 30 '18 at 12:24

There was a user who flagged this as rude or abusive, this induced a downvote, and the account was self-deleted which cleared that flag as helpful and deleted the question.

I've cleared the flag, and the question is now undeleted. If the community so desires, closure and deletion can proceed as usual.

• Wait, so are you saying that if a user flags a question as spam/abuse, then deletes their account before a moderator can get to it, then the site automatically deletes the question? That seems odd, to say the least. – Theo Bendit Sep 30 '18 at 11:32
• @Theo: Why? If something is considered by people of the community to be rude or offensive, and the account is deleted, it's easier to remove it. Yes, this system is not perfect, but these sort of occurrences seem like a somewhat small edge case. – Asaf Karagila Sep 30 '18 at 11:33
• @AsafKaragila I mean, it's not disastrous, but it's just a vector for mischief to occur. Also, I'm a little troubled to see that the asker's user profile was also deleted too. She had $1$ reputation and was presumably brand new, but still, this will probably turn her off the site. Again, not a disaster, but not ideal either. – Theo Bendit Sep 30 '18 at 11:36