In my experience moderating this site, it is my determination that the community in general rarely if ever treats comments appropriately. Constructive criticism is often ignored, obvious errors in posts are uncorrected even when pointed out, and notifications of moderator action more often than not turns into a personal argument with the moderator. I have seen users inappropriately flag posts just because they disagree with a moderator action, personally call out moderators in chat, personally call out moderators in comments to wholly unrelated questions, just because their question got closed or their answer got deleted.
Yet I have rarely if ever seen the user actually correct the problems with the post.
Despite repeated explanations that moderators are merely accelerating what any high-rep user can do, despite repeated explanations that moderators merely enforce community standards rather than set them, users still often treat moderator actions as a personal attack and injustice, demanding it be corrected. Despite repeated attempts to tell users to take their issues to meta, where the community at large can discuss them, moderators who choose to action a post still get personally targetted.
Yet I have rarely if ever seen the user actually attempt discuss the matter with the community.
Moderators often have to deal with flags asking for a post to be deleted, often appropriately so, yet despite the low reputation bar for commenting the flagger often chooses not to leave a comment. Similarly, users can cast votes to close and even delete without so much as leaving a single comment explaining themselves. I can only speak for myself here, but even when my close vote was merely one of five needed to close a post I find myself personally attacked for not leaving comments. Similarly, I find myself personally called out to explain site policy, or the Stack Exchange model, despite the fact that that's something that any number of other users can do.
Yet I have rarely if ever seen other users be personally expected to leave notifications.
Frankly, it is my opinion that by leaving comments as I have been only reinforces the long-standing misconception that moderators somehow run this site; by its very nature the diamond by the notification just tends to look somehow more "official". Moderators are simply users like any other, and Stack Exchange has always been built on the idea of self-moderation, yet even after almost two years of leaving constructive criticism, writing meta posts, patiently explaining how the site works in chat, pointing people to appropriate venues, and just generally keeping the site clean, users still haven't quite grasped the fundamental idea that the site is run by the community, not the moderators.
For the last few days, I have been not only more strict in deleting posts, but often chose to forego commenting entirely when I did so.
In the wake of that, do you know what happened? Users actively sought out ways to improve their posts, made those corrections, and had them undeleted. Meta activity effectively tripled, and not just from the aggrieved parties. There have been noticeable increases in not only reviews and constructive flags, but also downvoting on the main site which has been notoriously lacking since the site was founded. Even post quality in general has improved.
In many cases, by the very same users whose posts were deleted in the first place.
Is this all a result of my lack of comments? I doubt it, but the fact that months upon months of commenting have failed to achieve anything approaching this can't be overstated.
As a moderator, frequent commenting is suggested as a means to guide users to understand the community norms. However, the essential aspect there is to guide users, and as far as I'm concerned constantly offering the community a carrot they refuse to follow and blindly expecting things to get better is more indicative of "low quality moderation" than a few silent deletions.
I have wielded the carrot for almost two years with little to show for it but gray hair. I have wielded the stick for a week, and constructive activity has skyrocketed.
So if you ask me why moderators do not always mention the exact reason a post was deleted, my answer will be the same as if you ask me why the moderators do anything: Moderators do what they do because they want the site to succeed. Just like pretty much every other user on this site, moderators are volunteers who have (among other roles) chosen to take the task of guiding the site to graduation.
And if I thought I could bring this site even one step closer to graduation by abolishing comments altogether, believe me I would suggest it.
