Why are site comments being deleted?

Question

Some site users have noticed old comments being deleted. This is correct - site comments are meant to be a mostly temporary means of improving questions and answers. Here's an explanation of the process we use.

Argumentative comments or extended discussion comment threads hijacking an entire question/answer will get deleted semi-immediately. Take it to chat or meta. What is "extended discussion?" If the comment thread takes up a whole Web browser top to bottom, you're definitely there. If you can't see any answers from the bottom of the question - you're there. Comments criticizing the content of a question/answer are fine; point by point rebuttals are not on topic here. If you want to write something really long, write your own better answer.

Answers in comments - on the question, normally - get deleted immediately. Posting an answer as a comment is simply an end-run around the usual community voting, editing, etc. system and is inappropriate. (Further reading: Should users refrain from answers (or partial answers) in comments?)

Obsolete comments - like "What about X?" "Good question, I edited that into the answer" get deleted as they are seen, as they have achieved their purpose. This is a happy deletion - job done, time to tidy up. Comments suggesting changes get tidied up after a while too if the post author rejects the suggestion.

Trivial comments - like "+1! I like that idea!" get deleted eventually. My preference is to let comments like that stand as part of the collaboration around a question, as they do provide helpful feedback around the whole process. I don't touch those until initial activity on the question has dropped off and it's clearly become part of the long tail of questions. Then, I'll delete a comment like that when happened upon. When an old question pops up or I'm going to it, I'll delete comments that fit this criterion. (Needless to say, this is what voting is the persistent implementation of.)

Irrelevant or pointless comments - like most jokes - same thing; deleted once a question quiets down. Happy to let them go while the initial stampede is on, but no sense burdening posterity with them. If there are so many that it's taking up a page of real estate and hiding real answers, they may go quicker.

Lengthy discussions, similarly, are discouraged and will be cleaned up once a question quiets down. Important information or clarifications should be rolled into a question or answer, not left in ten back-and-forths. I sometimes put comment-notes at the end of these saying something like "Please incorporate any useful info from this into your answer, for this comment thread will be cleaned up soon."

Of course comment deletion (and editing valuable info from them into the real question or answer) isn't just up to mods, please do it with your own Q&As, with others' if you have enough rep, and if not you can flag comments for attention. Like so...

If we get flags on comments, we will act to delete more quickly than usual because it's clearly bugging a site user in a non-hypothetical way.

Needless to say, comment deletion isn't binary. If comments seem to have lasting worth, and lots of upvotes on them is part of that, they get left. We don't get charged by the comment so we're not obsessed with deleting them all. We do, however, want questions and answers - individually and as a whole thread - to be easy to read and understand, and extensive commenting hinders that. So the best thing is for valuable info in comments to make their way into the Q&As, and for low value comments to be deleted.

As some explanation as to why this is a SE practice and not just "the Man trying to keep you down," I submit for your approval a statement from Robert Cartiano, Director of Community Development for the Stack Exchange Network, who says here on an equivalent question:

It's no wonder users are taken aback when Stack Exchange works against their spirited debate and conversation. Before Christianity SE, "traditional" discussion forums taught us to jump into the fray of the witty and insightful discussions where you could bounce off off into ever-branching sub-conversations as easily as you could click and type.

The problem is that most online discourse reaches noise levels reminiscent of a group of friends at a spirited get-together. Stack Exchange specifically discourages that type of debate and on-going discussion. That is by design — but to understand why comments are so transient and expendable, you have to understand the core purpose of Stack Exchange's behavior. Stack Exchange in a Nutshell

After someone asks a question, members of the community propose answers. Others vote on those answers. Very quickly, the best answers rise to the top. You don’t have to read through a lot of discussion to find the best answer. If an answer can be improved, users can edit the post.

Comments help facilitate that wiki-style editing by allowing us to ask for a bit of clarification or otherwise help improve that post. That's what comments are for. Period.

When users start adding important, useful, and interesting information in the commentary, you break down that structure of "one question, best answer." You have to comb through all the commentary for import addendums and corrections and partial answers and important bits of information spread throughout. That entirely defeats the purpose of having a Stack Exchange site on Christianity.

It's not enough to say that your comment is just harmless banter that isn't hurting anything. Users will imitate what they see, so when they see conversations posing as answers, they'll follow with their own… and the problem propagates.

There's nothing inherently wrong with communities that that want free, open-ended discussion and back-and-forth debate. If traditional forums are your choice, there are certainly enough of them out there.

But on Stack Exchange, routine cleanup of comments helps enforce the purpose of comments. Comments are there to discuss improvements to the post. When their purpose has been served, they are deleted. When comments drift into conversations, they should be deleted. It's all part of discouraging comments from becoming mini chat systems…

… and for users who have been around long enough to see how well this system works, it is a welcome change.

Is this practice clear and understandable? Is there any additional guidance we should take into account when handling comments?

Addendum: Comments on meta are not deleted (except for cause); meta is deliberately more discussion-y than the main site. This seems to be causing confusion for many posters here so I thought I'd address it directly.

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Answer 1

In the interests of visibility, I'll say I'm (part of) the reason comments are being deleted.

In my year on the site I've flagged comments ~230 times for deletion. I'd estimate based on my "helpful" rate and the number of times I'm flagging as "obsolete along with successors", that I've probably triggered the deletion of over 500 comments.

Often the mods come under fire for "zealously" comment-hunting, even though they repeatedly tell us that they've got better ways to spend their time and that they're largely responding to automatic and community flags. The problem is: the mod deleting the comment is visible to those concerned. The user throwing a flag isn't.

I've poked around in some other rather-active users' profiles, and it seems most have also thrown hundreds of flags. I can't see any other's breakdown of flag type, but even if I'm the outlier at 78% comment-flagging and others average only half that, we're still talking thousands of comments being deleted on the prompting of a few dozen people.

If I see a comment that's been edited into the post or that's off-topic, I flag it. I also flag comments that are constructive and on-topic if they've been sitting around for a few years and it doesn't seem like OP's interested in incorporating the feedback.

Answer 2

The 5 minute window is a pain - but note that the deletion limit is much longer.

The propensity of mxyzplk to delete comments on the basis of simply being "too forum like" in the absence of actual complaint... it's bad form.

Many times, comments clarify what's in the answer, and should be incorporated.

In others, they are tangential information. Information that adds value to the site, but not to the answer itself. But it's this very role which mxyzplk seems bent upon prohibiting. A role, which, if one looks on stackexchange.com itself, is not only not targeted, but often of more long-term utility than the answers themselves.

Answer 3

A tidy site is safer from trolls

Another, way less obvious reason to ruthlessly remove comments used for anything other than managing Q&A posts: innocent but chatty comments would provide “weeds” that give cover for trolls and other bad actors to better blend in with our good users.

By contrast, removing everything that's not focused on improving Q&A quality makes trolls stick out like a sore thumb compared to acceptable uses of comments. If the only way a troll can use the site is by asking good, on-topic questions and providing thoughtful, well-supported answers, they're effectively unable to achieve their mission and end up achieving ours instead.

This is a major reason why SE in general and RPG.se in particular isn't overrun with toxic accounts. Cutting out the grey zone between productive and destructive uses of the site means people who use the site have to declare for one or the other purpose: work together on Q&A, or out themself as here for trouble. Since eliminating the in-between stuff creates a fairly bright line between welcome behaviours and unwelcome ones, everyone with community moderation tool privileges can tell when someone is here to make trouble, as they stand out clearly from our good-faith users.

This clear space between also gives us much more room for our established good-faith users to be human and imperfect, to err without making anyone suddenly wonder if, wait, have they really been a troll all this time? It gives us a clear basic level of mutual trust that is very valuable for productively tackling conflicting views.

It's like keeping the land around a castle clear of scrub: there's nowhere for an approaching army to hide, and it gives a lot of clear space to easily see how people present and conduct themselves.

Answer 4

Sorry for the very late answer, but this is trending topic recently on rpg.SE, and one that has been bothering me recently.

I agree that a lot of comments should be deleted. While I don't mind reading interesting comments or good jokes, I understand they are not really appropriate on SE.

On the other hand, the ongoing "comment hunt" is disturbing. I hesitate more and more about using the comment box, no matter the situation, because of the looming "Please refrain from using comments for..." It happens pretty often on the same day. On the long term, questions and discussions that could have triggered valuable comments will disappear. Then valuable comments themselves will disappear.

Extremism in one direction or the other is never a good thing. I understand comments are pointless for posterity. But posterity takes time. So let's aim for a middle ground: let's delete comments... after a probation period. Comments are allowed while the question is active. After two weeks of inactivity, comments are hunted and cleaned, as it should be.

I understand this means more work for us, but this is the only way we can have our cake and eat it.

Answer 5

You, Dear Reader, are deleting many of the comments!

The last few years SE staff have provided us with Year in Moderation summary statistics. (Recall that "moderation" includes both elected moderators' activities and the use of moderation privileges and tools by high-rep users.)

From these we see that roughly one-third of all comment-deletions are at the hand of "regular" users, the other two thirds coming from elected moderators.

Two things I think are worth noting there:

• Note that when you delete a post of yours all of the comments below are also deleted, so that shows in the "Community" count of deleted comments. Depending on your perspective, you may feel like that overcounts deletions. Or maybe not.

• Having served as an elected moderator, I can testify that almost all of our comment-deletions come from us responding to a flag on a post. Frankly, we're not going around looking for comments to delete. But we get a dozen or more posts flagged a day, and the majority are for comment cleanup. So even the comments we're deleting, you're the ones aiming that diamond.

Answer 6

Just to ask a question that I think I know the answer to, but what is the preferred method of responding to comments that are critical of your answer? In the past I've incorporated critiques I've agreed with into my answers and responded to critiques I've disagreed with in comments of my own. Some of these have been left alone and others have been deleted as "argumentative" and I don't know exactly what the threshold is. I get that this isn't a forum and long discussions in comment sections shouldn't happen. Is the best way to respond to critiques (even the ones I disagree with) not with comments at all but to incorporate those into edits in my answers? For instance, inserting a section like: "Some might argue X, but I believe Y, and here's why".

Answer 7

I must say some comment removing is over-zealous.

A while ago I had a question, about pathfinder, which I'm very new at. Being a GM when you never played a RPG can be challenging. A comment came on that, and I answered it asking for more information, and half an hour later both of these comments (and perhaps an answer I never could have known if it were given) were deleted. The question was less than 24 hours long at that moment in time.

Sometimes the answer isn't clear, but might look that way to people more familiar with the subject material. Comments about this got deleted. Since there's no recourse or restoration for those comments, there's nothing you can do about it and it feels inhibiting.

This is a bad thing

I think that with new questions, mods should restrain themselves a lot more. Sure, if you look it over a week after posting and the comments are three days old, move them to chat or delete them - but not half an hour after being posted.

Sometimes you NEED a tangent to clarify and answer or question. You cannot always edit the answer/question right away, because at that moment it's not clear to anyone what the correct edit is.

Therefore, please do not remove comments as eager on active questions. Unless it's clear abusive, keep them around for like 24 hours as a minimum. Don't put them into chat right away either - unless it's really growing at chatbox speed. Chat is an extra click away, and already makes it feel as if that conversation cannot be had - it's basically deleted-light.

(Note: it was on my other account - my personal instead of with work email. Question was: Brawler fighting against Undead, for those interested.)

Answer 8

Hiding legitimate concerns with an answer gives readers a false sense of security.

Hiding and deleting comments whenever there is more than a few makes it seem like an answer is more reliable than it may be.

For example anyone reading this answer will be immediately aware that are unanswered questions and debate surrounding it. The reader will beware and perhaps check out some of comments to find out what problems exist.

If the comments were moved to chat, or worse removed entirely, then a reader would probably not be aware of any problems. Although an experienced user may decide to go read the chat, I doubt the average user would.

Unresolved issues should be left on the comment until they are resolved by being explained or merged into the question.

Answer 9

I am seeing an obsolete comment often; namely some variation of "do not answer in comments.".

Please stop leaving these pointless comments behind when you remove comments.

To clarify, @mxyzplk, I'm not trying to be a smart-alek here, it's a serious comment. To me, those "Please do not use comments for answers" had no purpose; they seemed to be a waste of screen real estate telling me something that (hopefully) I already know.

Thanks for explaining why you are leaving those comments. I hadn't thought about someone who sees their comment gone thinking "oh, the system ate my comment" and reposting it.

Answer 10

IMO the practice of allowing users to delete comments is not defensible except when comments get nasty, contain profanity, etc. Following comments has never been a hassle on this site. I see them as funny bon mots, helpful observations, and polite responses to questions.

Why is there a perceived need to tidy up the place? By what right can someone censure your words? Who cares if the forum is a little messy. Big deal. It's disconcerting to discover someone has been rummaging through your posts & deleting your comments.