Of late there has been greater push towards keeping comments on-topic and deleting comments that are silly/make no sense/are way past their usefulness, etc on the different SE sites to keep the comment threads short and relevant. Usually it is done quietly behind the scenes, but I thought it would be nice to get community input to gauge if this makes sense or not, lest people bring out their pitchforks for unilaterally deleting comments.
The type of comments that I suggest should be deleted/cleaned up are:
- "Could you add a pic of X?"/ "Could you mention your location?"/ "Could you expand on your answer?", etc.
- "Pic added." / "Thanks, will do so." etc.
- "+1, me too" / "I want to know the answer to this" etc.
Category 1 is irrelevant after the user has edited the post to add the requested info and becomes plain noise. By the same argument, category 2 is also noise and if 1 is removed, 2 should go too. Class 3 adds nothing of value to the discussion.
Now I'd prefer if users deleted their own comments once they see that it has served its purpose. But we are all human and we forget to do so. So my question is, would it be alright if we deleted such comments (I hope no one takes it to heart if we do)? In addition, if you see comments left by others that are outdated, you can also flag it as one of obsolete/chatty/not constructive
and we shall clean it up.