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You're not wrong. Certainly the bulk of these comments aren't especially "nice" and while they aren't directed at the users posting the questions, I can see how they might result in them feeling like their questions are less welcome than others.
I promise wholeheartedly to keep my criticism of this show to private channels from now on.
Mea culpa and I've ...
26
Don't worry about it.
There's no question which will interest everyone. For that matter, there's no single sci-fi or fantasy franchise (not Harry Potter, not Star Wars, not Lord of the Rings) which will interest everyone. For any given question on this site, there will always be people who find it uninteresting. So no, you don't have to interest every ...
20
Should these types of comments be flagged, addressed, or merely ignored?
If you feel that a comment is not constructive, flag it.
If a comment does not relate to improving the question or one of the answers, flag it.
You are never required to respond to any comment, particularly one with any of the above problems.
Having said that, if you find a comment ...
19
There are three ways that a comment can get deleted.
A user can delete their own comment.
A moderator can delete anyone's comments.
Any user with at least 15 reputation can flag a comment, and enough flags can cause the deletion of that comment.
-- source
Insulting comments will be deleted, whether by a moderator or by sufficient community flags.
As a ...
18
As I noted in my comment, my personal opinion is that it is tacky, though there is nothing prohibiting you from doing so (site policy, etc). However, while my initial reaction is that you were overreacting, I checked the query you posted and decided to look at questions in general for the year. And I was quite surprised.
Graphing the questions for the year ...
18
It's not so much that the policy has changed, it's that certain users have been aggressively flagging comments lately.
Some of the comments that were flagged on the linked question included:
It sounds fantastic!
I remember reading a short story online about this but I can't remember what it was called or where it was.
I wanna read this, ...
17
For commenting anywhere, you need 50 reputation points. (This equates to 5 upvotes on answers or questions, so you should be able to pick up those points fairly quickly if you have good content to contribute.)
For commenting on your own posts, or on answers to your own questions, there's no reputation requirement - you should be able to do this. If this is ...
13
I think that all "Why the downvote?" comments are pointless and should be flagged and deleted.
In general, I think those comments are not constructive because the meaning of a downvote is right there in the tooltip that pops up over the button and because I don't think I've ever seen anyone come back and add a comment explaining their downvote in response.
...
answered Mar 22 '16 at 5:43
Ward - Reinstate Monica
9,0681 gold badge17 silver badges26 bronze badges
13
Speaking as someone who periodically posts those sort of comments ...
In Star Trek Beyond, how does terminal velocity help "jump start" the Franklin?
"Because terrible writing"
Why did J remember about K when no one else did?
"Because terrible writing"
Why were the Ursa designed to track solely by fear?
"Because terrible ...
13
From the help centre page on commenting:
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).
...
12
First off, the "too chatty" flag really sounds like it is meant for comments that have diverged into a side conversation. If anything, "joke" comments would fall under "Non-constructive", as they really are not helping improve the question/answer.
We definitely don't want to go the #3 route, as that would require our moderators to suddenly become the final ...
12
Questions about issues such as race and sexuality often attract some less-than-polite comments, and so moderators tend to be quite proactive about pruning comments on such questions. The last thing this site needs is an ugly fight in comments about hot-button issues. Even the questions themselves can be controversial, let alone the comment sections.
Your ...
11
Comments are there to (ideally) improve the question or answer they were left on.
If you left a comment on an answer suggesting a correction, and the answer was then edited to incorporate the correction, then your comment did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Comments are, for the most part, supposed to be temporary. This isn't always rigorously ...
11
Unfortunately, as much as that kind of information might be useful, it's not what comments are for. Comments are meant to help improve the question -- ask for clarification, make suggestions for edits, etc.
When a moderator sees a long comment thread that contains discussion or speculation, or information that better belongs in an answer, there's a decent ...
11
I declined this flag. Others have linked to various SciFi Meta threads on this issue, and I will admit that many of them suggest that they should be flagged and deleted.
I declined it in part because you flagged it as "too chatty" despite the fact that it was the only comment on that post; however, in researching comment flag directives here and on Meta.SE ...
11
TL;DR: No, you don't need to get the interest of all people. People who leave such comments are wrong, you're right.
I don't understand why people bother not only reading, but leaving rude comments on questions they don't find interesting.
Live and let live. For every question your opinionated self finds un-interesting/boring/meh, there are people who both ...
11
This is by design.
From the main meta FAQ How do comment @replies work?:
Note that the author of the post will always be notified of any new comment. You may still use it for clarity, if needed; however if only you and the author have commented on the post so far, the @name will be automatically removed from the beginning of the comment, as it adds no ...
11
For my money, you're conflating two entirely separate issues;
Whether we should continue to be broadly tolerant of 'jokey' or humourous comments on posts in general
Whether the use of 'effing' crosses over the boundary of inappropriate content in specific
Funny Comments:
Over time we've developed a culture that encourages, or at least doesn't discourage, ...
10
The problem with keeping top comments around simply because they're top comments is because a lot of them are simply humorous or joking comments, or replies to previous comments. Taken without the other comments, they won't make sense. Or, if they are simply standalone funny comments, they are cute and all but add no permanent value, so there's no reason to ...
10
We don't resurrect comments unless there's a particularly compelling reason to do so, and "it was interesting" just isn't compelling.
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First let me point out that you can flag anything you want for any reason you want - that doesn't mean the flag will be marked helpful :-)
Pedantry aside:
Yes, this can certainly be a valid reason for flagging.
If someone asks a question about Harry Potter which specifically requests no spoilers from the last 2 books (or 3 films), and someone else leaves ...
10
Our "Be Nice" policy (I guess now the Code of Conduct), does apply to "public figures" which would include the writers of the show.
The correct course of action would be flag posts you think are do not follow policy and the moderation team can handle them from there.
10
By their Stack Exchange definitions, comments are supposed to clarify the question, add more info, in short, be constructive. Amittedly we SFF folks do have more "joke" comments left around, about JKR math not making any sense, Highlander II not being a thing, etc, etc; they're mostly fine, but as always, too much can be too much.
I'm not familiar with ...
9
I think we should heavily discourage them.
They don't serve any real purpose
They can be very easily misread as a chastisement
They're a bit creepy : "Who is this person and why are they messaging me?"
They're basically a form of spam for wannabe moderators.
They encourage other low-value comments.
They give a false impression that the commenter is a ...
9
I would follow the strategy laid out in this question.
Create a new question or answer (but don't post it!)
Use the interface provided to upload the image as if you were writing an actual post.
Then you should have a valid Imgur link to put in your comments.
If you would rather not use the SE Imgur account, you could always use your own Imgur account. The ...
9
Per Websters;
Worthless: Having no real value or use.
If you think that a question or an answer has no real value or use, then saying so is entirely fair comment. It's possibly a little blunt and I guess you could couch your opinion in weasel-words ("I think your question is lacking in real value or use") to lessen the impact on those of a fragile ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
