How can the policy regarding discussions in comments be improved?

Question

As is the nature of role playing games, the rules are very often incomplete and open to interpretation. This can often spawn differences of opinion on answers and lead to lengthly comments over whether a particular point is correct or not.

When this happens moderators are prone to delete the comments and leave one of their own:

Don't argue in comments. Present your opinions in your answer.

I don't hold that against mods, they're following procedure; but I do find it frustrating. Posting two differing opinions in answers leaves no room for discussion on those opinions. It doesn't allow for anyone to point out why an answer might be flawed, except in your own answer.

Is this really the best policy? I'm not saying that comments is necessarily the best place for these discussions to occur, but I feel that valuable content is being lost because these comments are being deleted. Is there a better way we can handle this so that content isn't lost? Can we encourage users to place it in a better place where discussion can still continue and be publicly viewable in the correct context (i.e. linked to the question / answer they are discussing)?

Answer 1

Comments are a tool for getting to the right answer, not a place for answer. You're right we need discussion in comments to suss out the question or improve an answer, but the result shouldn't live there.

What if you see content in an comment? If it's good content, move it to an answer. If we (the mods) see good content in comments we will ask for it to be moved to the answer.

Sometimes I'll even do it myself.

Answer 2

I have a suggestion for a "don't argue in comments" boilerplate comment that should resolve both the "huh, what is this comment here for?" issue as well as partially address the content-loss issue, while being firm yet inoffensive in tone:

Reminder: comments are for clarifying content, not discussion. Please take any discussion to Role-playing Games Chat. All prior comments have been purged.

1. The last sentence explains why this comment is here, preventing a "huh?" reaction from anyone who missed the foofaraw.
2. It kinda implies the fact that this information would have been preserved if it had been done in chat in the first place.
3. The phrasing avoids any sense of scolding that might make the message harder to receive, while still very clearly including arguing (a subtype of "discussion") as something inappropriate for comments. The firmness of its directions also strongly discourage further comments-for-discussion or -argument.

To give credit, this is taken from Beofett♦ at Parents.SE [↗].

Boilerplate text:

Reminder: comments are for clarifying content, not discussion. Please take any discussion to [Role-playing Games Chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/?tab=site&sort=active&host=rpg.stackexchange.com). All prior comments have been purged.

Answer 3

Comments aren't meant to be saved

From our own help page on Comments

Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer.

Comments are meant to inform questions and answers, clear up misunderstandings and to ping users to changes being made to answers and questions.

You should submit a comment if you want to:

• Request clarification from the author
• Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post
• Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated).

What you seem to be describing though is an extended discussion which fits none of the above. Although it may be useful information if it doesn't fit the above criteria its better off being in our chat (transcripts are saved).

Answer 4

The original policy with extensive reasoning as to "why" is set out in this meta question: Why are site comments being deleted? and revisited once in Can we re-evaluate our comment deletion policy? (or at least have access to the data?) (and How much of an answer/suggestion should be in comments to questions?, and others...)

The bottom line is that comments should be used to suggest an improvement. Comment upvotes help put more weight behind them, and the answerer - or someone with edit privileges - can incorporate that improvement. But if they don't, then comments are not the place to object to their opinion. You write your own answer.

60% of the drama on the site comes from comment wars (the other 40%, from chat wars). We are not interested in being a forum even a little bit. I understand wanting to "get a word in," but we don't support that very specifically because it leads to a different site metaphor than our successful Stack Exchange Q&A site. You see that other-site mods from meta.SE have already commented to this same effect.

Having said that, we don't delete all comments. Comments we think do add valuable information, and especially upvoted comments, tend to stay. Unless they're part of a big comment war, in which case they can be lost in the purge. Of course, everyone's view is that their comment adds valuable information or context, so from their author's point of view 100% of comments are justified, but to the jaundiced eye of a site mod the set of comments that actually qualify is smaller. See the linked meta Q's for a more detailed explanation, no need for me to type it all in again.

As for improving - I'm open to brilliant out of the box ideas, as long as "just leave the comments around" is not that idea.