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Clarity in answers (and questions of course) is important. Where it is lacking, we should seek to improve that -- it does nobody any good if people end up answering the wrong question or if an answer is built on what turns out to be an incorrect premise. However, I would much rather that we do nothing at all than that we do it badly.
Sometimes comments ...
10
In addition to everything said by Monica, I think being overly-clear about your expectations of an OP can never hurt (unless you do it in a condescending way).
For example, if someone asks a question lacking motivation,
Can you explain why you would think otherwise? "I always heard" or "I once learned, although I don't remember where" are both valid ...
10
I leave comments that are undeveloped answers so others can build on them to make an answer if they want.
9
Rfפ - Request for פְּסַק (pesak / rabbinic ruling)
Presumably pronounced, if at all, "arr eff pay."
This is shorthand for a characteristic of a question that could cause it to be closed on Mi Yodeya - requesting a practical ruling, as if from a rabbi.
Earliest known usage: Scimonster, in an edit summary, November 24, 2014.
Earlier, inferior version, RfP, ...
9
Yes. This is a great thing to do. Please do this whenever you see a chance to do so.
If you see a comment that's pointing towards an answer, and you are able to flesh it out into a helpful answer post, please do so. Providing inspiration and assistance to you writing such an answer is why such comments exist. If you've used all of the relevant information ...
9
Regarding comments that point to a source that could provide an answer, the optimal outcome is that someone uses that source to write up a proper answer. One example of a community initiative that can result in many such upgrades is an Answerathon, as such comments often provide good opportunities to contestants to generate answers to unanswered questions by ...
8
More often than I'd like, I answer and am left to wonder whether my answer addressed the asker's concern. The asker's thank-you comment on the answer accomplishes that. I agree that, once the answerer sees the comment, it can be deleted, but I'll reiterate here for posterity (and because I wholly agree with it) what Monica Cellio ♦ posted in a comment ...
8
Edits that go against the author's intent are bad whether the post is an hour old or a year old, so please don't do that. Here are some things you can do instead:
Provide a better answer (if you can). This also bumps the question.
Bring it up in chat. While most people don't use chat, many active users do and they might have ideas about how to address ...
7
Yes. On your profile, first go to the "activities" tab and then choose the "comments" sub-tab. This will show you a date-ordered list of comments you've posted that have not been deleted. (Like deleted posts, deleted comments don't show up on your profile.)
If you've never looked around in "activities" (used to be called "activity") before, check it out -...
7
If the comment is purely a "thank you," then it's probably not necessary....but no reason to flag as "too chatty," in my opinion, because (as you quoted from animuson), it is certainly nice to reinforce the idea that the people who help you (and whom you help) are human, which is something that I've noticed that some people forget or lose sight of on ...
7
According to a a Stack Exchange employee, there is no way for non-moderators to view deleted comments, nor will Stack Exchange implement such a feature. Sorry.
As a piece of device from Shog's answer:
For most intents and purposes, deleted comments are gone - you should
try your best to put anything of value into an actual answer. As you
note, you ...
7
I think a much clearer and to the point response would be something along the lines of:
Answers are only for content that directly address the question. Any
other content relevant to the question should be posted as a comment
to the question. However, posting a comment to someone else's question
is a privilege you earn with 50 reputation. There is ...
7
In your user profile, under the activity tab, under the all actions tab, you'll find a tab listing all your comments.
6
I don't know what the nature of your comment was or why it was deleted, but comments are, according to SE doctrine, "temporary 'Post-It' notes left on a question or answer" for the purpose of suggesting improvement to the post they're on. If the comment suggested an improvement, and that improvement was made, then the comment has no more reason to exist, so ...
6
Comments are second-class citizens and are always subject to removal. Any important information should be in a proper post.
This I feel confident is not going to happen.
5
Thank you for bringing your concern to meta.
I believe your post is based on some pretty fundamental misunderstandings, so before I respond to your request, I'm going to address those. They are in three categories:
misunderstandings of SE policies
misunderstandings of current moderation activities
misunderstandings of other users' comments
...
5
This is a symptom of a bigger problem: comments aren't supposed to be for that kind of chatting. They're to improve the post in some way. So if somebody asks a question about something in the post, and it's not complete noise, then the best response is to edit the post to address that concern. Now the comment is obsolete and can be deleted.
We mods ...
5
Hi [insert username]. Your name looks familiar; is [this other account](link to other account) also yours? If so, please [ask for them to be merged](/help/merging-accounts). That way, you can keep track of all of your activity here in one place.
5
O-Cmon (also O-כמאן) - A fictitious kosher-certification agency with notoriously low standards.
This hechsher was first mentioned on a PTIJ question from 2012 asking what a particular strange marking was on some foods. The answer describes it as "the world’s first crowd-sourced Kosher certification."
This agency is occasionally mentioned on Mi Yodeya (e.g. ...
5
PTIJ / p-t-i-j - Purim Torah - in jest
This term is the initialization of the purim-torah-in-jest tag, which is applied, in accordance with the Purim Torah policy, to in-season non-serious questions.
Earliest known usage: May 8, 2013 by Isaac Moses, in Bam:
@msh210 File away for PTIJ 5774: this pun, along with conspiracy theories
5
From our Help Center's page on "How do I write a good answer?":
Answer the question
Read the question carefully. What, specifically, is the question asking for? Make sure your answer provides that – or a viable alternative. The answer can be “don’t do that”, but it should also include “try this instead”. Any answer that gets the asker going in the ...
5
That's an auto-prompt from the SE engine, which apparently is not smart enough to detect your comment upvote. (I guess when you vote it checks for a comment from you.) If I recall correctly, the prompt is phrased as a suggestion. In this case you already took a reasonable action, so don't worry about it.
Every now and then somebody proposes (across the ...
5
If I don't have an answer at all but have some information that can lead to an answer, I will often post it as a comment.
5
I can't speak for the other moderators, but when I'm facing obsolete flags on comments the first thing I do is pop open the deleted comments so I can see the flags in context. For me that's a one-click action because of a userscript I'm using; otherwise it's between one and three clicks depending on -- I kid you not -- window size.
If you delete your ...
5
The answer should definitely not be deleted. Consider that all clarifications to questions (and answers for that matter, but here we are discussing a question) are supposed to be edited into the question itself. Comments are ephemeral by design, and can be deleted by a moderator at any time without any notice. Any clarifications made to a post in a comment ...
4
To make links in comments (this works in posts and chat, too), use the format:
[here](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/editing-help#comment-formatting)
For more information on formatting comments, click on the "help" link to the right of the comment-entry box. For even more information, click on "Learn more..." there, or just click here to go to the FAQ ...
4
This image is an excerpt from a screenshot of the Badges sidebar on the front page of the Judaism Stack Exchange beta website1, indicating that user Shalom was awarded the bronze badge for answering questions in the shabbat tag. Because it shows the words "shabbat Shalom," it's used in Chat as a humorous way for people to wish each other Shabbat Shalom.
...
4
I think the comments have to go. They don't help the post (but rather, the old post), so they go.
That said, if the information is valuable then we should try to save it somehow. This could mean:
editing it into the post as an alternative (with attribution, I suppose)
making it its own answer
asking and self answering another question
posting it into chat ...
4
You can always request deletion of comments by flagging them. If your intent is to flag a collection of comments, the best way is probably to flag the first one, choose "other ..." as the reason, and then add a comment explaining which comments you want deleted and why.
You can also, if you see a discussion like that brewing, post a comment suggesting that ...
4
From the description of the "comment everywhere" privilege:
When should I comment?
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 ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible