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I received an email stating I have unread items in SE inbox. When I clicked on the link, the comments had already been deleted. I remember having a discussion with the OP in the comment section not 24h before then, and they were continuing the discussion, but all comments were gone.

Unless this is an automatic thing (which I highly doubt), this behavior makes no sense. If a mod is cleaning up comments within 24h of them being added, they should stop doing that. Given that regular users have no recourse to contest comment deletion, this is a dangerous power that should be exercised with a lot of caution, not taken as lightly as it is currently.

This is the post I'm referring to: Subsetting a Seurat object based on colnames

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One of the comments was flagged as "Unkind or Unhelpful", unfortunately, I can't figure out which one it was, but looking at the four deleted comments, none of them occurs to me as unkind (although there is apparently some misunderstanding between you and the OP). As I could not spot anything pathological, I undeleted all the comments.

If the deletion of all the comments was simple cleaning, I do think that's wrong and I am fully on your side. Fresh comments within boundaries of good behaviour should not be deleted by anyone else than their authors (I guess with exception of obvious mistakes, or helping new users sort everything out).

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you, Kamil. I was and still am trying to understand how OP thinks their code should work, and like you say, it's not unkind. I think it's not even a misunderstanding, just a simple discussion. $\endgroup$
    – Ram RS
    Aug 16, 2021 at 17:56
  • $\begingroup$ To me, it did look like an honest attempt to help, so I would probably like to hear out the people that do find it "Unkind or Unhelpful". $\endgroup$
    – Kamil S Jaron
    Aug 17, 2021 at 11:14
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I delete comments that look like an answer. Comments should primarily be used to help people edit the question to make it better.

Where a comment involves ongoing or extended discussion, I usually attempt to incorporate the discussion into the question, and delete the comments.

Discussions should happen in chat, not in comments, because the voting system means that discussion threads can be broken up and separated from their context.

If there's a particular point that you want to get across that helps the person solve the problem they're having, put it into an answer.

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Note: this is about deleting comments in general, not about this specific situations.

As the faq says,

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

So, comments are meant to be deleted once they have outlived their usefulness. Comments getting deleted is normal.

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    $\begingroup$ Sure, I understand that, but deleting a comment while a discussion is ongoing does not fit the outliving usefulness criterion. $\endgroup$
    – Ram RS
    Oct 28, 2021 at 18:05
  • $\begingroup$ @RamRS that assumes the comment was useful in the first place (I don’t know whether it was or not because I cannot see the comments.) $\endgroup$
    – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica
    Oct 28, 2021 at 18:18
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    $\begingroup$ Did you even read the post? A comment in an ongoing discussion with the OP deleted within 24h is pretty specific. I know that comments are largely ephemeral in the SE world. $\endgroup$
    – Ram RS
    Oct 29, 2021 at 18:02
  • $\begingroup$ @RamRS it may have been in an ongoing discussion, and it may have been specific, but it may not have been on topic for a comment. (Again, I can’t comment on this specific situation without seeing the comments, which I can’t). $\endgroup$
    – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica
    Oct 29, 2021 at 18:03
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    $\begingroup$ I should have addressed that too - it was on topic. We were clarifying the problem at hand. Given the lack of available context, what prompted your answer here? $\endgroup$
    – Ram RS
    Oct 29, 2021 at 18:05

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