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10:25 PM
-6
Q: Can we delete comments efficiently without causing authors to question their mental health?

DaMaxContentRecently, a conversation I was engaged in was deleted. Confused, I asked about that and it was explained to me (politely and helpfully). But I'm concerned that this is a frequent occurrence, that others may regularly find themselves as today I found myself: doubting their own perception. Questi...

 
I'm sorry that you're having to deal with this concern. Can you please explain how this would help? You seem both concerned with comments that you write and those that are written by others. Even if SE implements a way to notify you when/if your comments are deleted, you still won't know that other people have had theirs deleted. Making the comments visible to everyone even after being deleted defeats the purpose of deleting them.
 
user281052
@Catija think of the way Reddit does this. They leave a placemarker (looks like this: [deleted]) when a comment is deleted.
 
@DaMaxContent And that never causes any drama.
 
That seems like it could get really messy if it marked each specific comment removed... do you mean something simply like {this post has X deleted comments}? I have often deleted dozens of comments on posts, all at once... Mods can see such a message, I suppose that it could be something that could be made visible to everyone ... but are you sure that would help? Knowing that comments were deleted won't tell you what the comments were.
 
user281052
@Servy I agree. I think I might be a rare case. In one way I'd like to hope that I am not so, so I don't feel so alone, but I cannot deny the validity of that comment
 
10:25 PM
Have you considered talking to the mods on the sites you use to see if they would be willing to let you know whether comments had been removed if you were to ask?
 
user281052
@Catija something like that might work. Perhaps adding a context to that notification could work too, say add the timestamps of the comments or at least the posted material that the comment was on, and to answer your second comment, I did. I reached out on SuperUser's meta, and made sure to point out that my question (on meta) was simply for support and was a non issue, but I'm concerned about my future usage of all of Stack Exchange. Not all moderators may be so kind (I'd like to hope they are kind, but I don't think I can guarantee that)
 
user281052
@Servy I'd also like to counter and say you are right. This never causes drama, because it is rare. Let's say only 2 people in the US have this concern, I and somebody else. I am not the kind of person to resort to litigation, but that doesn't stop someone else. SE is headquartered in New York and the ADA requires that organizations open to the public provide reasonable accommodation to those with disabilities. Just because a disability is rare, does not deny what it is, and to fail to even discuss accommodation is... well... I think you know where I am going and what my point is.
 
@DaMaxContent So you're now saying that this shouldn't be a feature for everyone, but rather a feature for just you, specifically, and no one else? And you think that it's a reasonable accommodation for every single website you ever use to add in custom development to support just you so that you can know if any change to the site was something that actually changed or just something you thought had changed? That's...quite a significant accommodation. You also can't say that you've been prohibited from discussing it; you're discussing it now.
 
user281052
@Servy that is not possible to implement for "special cases." Your verbage seems aggressive, and I don't like your tone ("rather a feature just for you"). A wheelchair ramp is a disability accommodation and it is an option for everyone to use regardless of disability. I want to remind you that suggesting that I want special treatment is rude when there is no reason outside of prejudice for that.
 
@DaMaxContent Your wording implied that the feature would only be available to you, and not to others, thus I asked if you were actually proposing that it only be available to you, or if that wasn't what you were actually suggesting. If that's not what you're suggesting, then fine, I misinterpreted that; that's why we clarify things. If you don't want people to be defensive, then I'd advise against threatening legal action, it's not a good way to get people to open up to you.
 
10:25 PM
Just an FYI, if this is as a big deal as it seems to be, be aware that answers/questions can also be deleted without notification and so as a result SE might be by design not necessarily the most accommodating environment if a permanent record of 100% of your actions is important to you.
 
user281052
@Servy If you would have read my comment carefully you would have noticed that I bolded and italicized that "I am not the kind of person to resort to litigation [...]" and meant that comment simply as a counter ("I'd also like to counter [...]"), not a threat.
 
@DaMaxContent When you say to someone, "I wouldn't sue you if you don't do what I want, but someone might end up suing you if you don't do exactly what I want" then that's, frankly, threatening legal action. Ostensibly not by you, but still a threat of legal action nonetheless. Bolding and italicizing something like that only makes the implication all the more clear.
 
Since having a record of your comments -- which you agree are ephemeral -- is important to you, and you know this at the time you post them, can you address your issue by taking a screenshot (or saving the page)? Part of the idea of reasonable accommodations is that both parties do what they can; this is something you can do to mitigate. For example, as a visually-challenged person I know I have to sit up front at presentations even if I'd rather hang out in back, but if even that doesn't help I can reasonably request a copy of the slides to follow along in. Both parties do their parts.
 
I'm glad that you like my answer but accepting it doesn't mean that anything in it will be implemented... I think you should wait so that the discussion can continue. Accepted answers often cause users to skip a question because they think it's already "solved".
 
user281052
@MonicaCellio perhaps this is inspiration for me to start writing a browser extension to auto-store comments. I wonder if that would work
 
10:25 PM
@DaMaxContent That seems like a good idea. :) Something that saves comments to a file as you submit them. :D
 
user281052
I wonder how I would get such a project off of the ground. I have doubts in it, but then again it would be the same issue for anyone (including SE mods/employess) in making a fix. I should start brainstorming
 
You could try the Stack Apps chat room chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/111347/sobotics I think the people in there can help you do something like that... you could also try Stack Apps, though I don't know the site very well.
 
I strongly suspect that could be done with a userscript, though I don't have the necessary knowledge to write it myself. I've seen "annotate web pages" scripts/extensions floating around in the past (for web pages in general, not specific to SE). There's probably a way to hook into the "add comment" button click to scoop up the text and stash it somewhere.
 
While I agree this will help you, Stack Exchange is not, and should not, be responsible for people's health. If you feel using SE might harm your health I'm afraid the best course of action is to just not use it.
 

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