Islam.SE has the potential of becoming an amazingly active online community. Think about it. Islam is the 2nd largest religion in the world, and at it's rate of growth, it may be the worlds largest in the next decade. That means that we might be getting a lot of questions, from Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The question is, how is this site going to represent it's users as people, because in my mind, there are only two things that could happen:
Well, first of all, we have to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt. I have seen way to many discussions in chat saying how a question, which obviously looks like it is going to start a debate, is given the "Well maybe he is just curious" thing, and is let go. We can't do that. That is a major source of our problems. We allow the debatable questions, and that starts a nonconstructive debate.
When should comments be deleted?
Generally, there is very little reason to delete existing comments from a question or an answer. There are a few possible scenarios where comments ought to be deleted, but it is worth noting that these should be few and far between, due to their permanent effect on the flow of the comment section.
- Spam: Though it's hard to categorize what's spam and what is simply a
verbose commenter, it's a bit like pornography. We'll know it when we
see it.
- Noise: Comments like "+1 .." or "belongs on" can be flagged for
automatic removal without the commenter being punished.
- Thread Cleanup: If edits have been made to a question, it could be
feasible for a moderator to delete all comments relating to that edit
once they're accepted. A comment should be added by the deleter
stating what was deleted and more importantly, why. For example:
@all : Comments 1-16 detailing editing discussion were deleted when consensus was reached, to clean up the thread.
If a comment doesn't meet either of the criteria above, then it shouldn't be deleted.
Now, a lot of the +1
comments are not enforced, because they really aren't bothering anybody. But, I see a bunch of comments that, as was stated in the above question, are not educating the author. If you see comments that are trying to start a "comment-war", flag it and walk away.