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Maybe it's only me going Alzheimers, but over the years on RC.SE I had several times a feeling as if comments of mine (*1) just vanished without a reasonable explanation. Since I neither regularly check back, nor track them otherwise (*2), I can't give any reliable number. Sometimes I simply attribute this to me having only thought about commenting but not went thru (*3).

Except, today I experienced a very obvious case, with a recent question about 80287 behaviour, where two comments seemingly vanished:

  • A number-user (*4) added a comment about some emulator handling all reserved instructions as (F)NOP, to which
  • I added that interpreting them as NOP this is the default behaviour expected from a emulator developed according to user available documentation (*5).

I would think of both as valuable additions and helpful toward the question. So, what happened?

P.S.: Other cases in the past have been less obvious and easy to pin down, but it felt more than once as if comments were removed without due diligence checks.

*1 - Seen similar for others, but that may as well have been due them deleting their own comment, so no way for me to judge.

*2 - I may be a lot, but never in danger to act out as bean counter :)

*3 - Not always easy, but not every question, answer or comment needs a follow up...

*4 - Sorry, would love give a name, but there wasn't one. 'userXXXXX' isn't something one would remember. Those place holders somehow read like BASIC programs using I, J, K not just in loops but all over including as global variables :(

*5 - Wording may have been different. It's been a few hours, a cup of tea and an afternoon nap since :))

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  • If you ever want help tracking down a specific example, just let one of the moderators know: we have access to that information. (Who knows why you don't? I blame Jeff Atwood.)
    – wizzwizz4 Mod
    Commented Nov 25, 2023 at 20:16
  • @wizzwizz4 Seems like I just encountered another case with a comment to a recent answer. I'm pretty sure to have written a comment about obvious false assumptions, which somehow isn't there anymore. AFAIR the comment wasn't anywhere special and restricted to the most obvious points. Again a number-account and interestingly one of the points got somewhat modified but not really changed. So, why this time? (This is BTW quite like other times where I had this feeling of a shifting reality)
    – Raffzahn
    Commented Feb 26 at 1:10
  • You did write a comment there. The answer was then edited, probably in response to your comment, and the comment was flagged "no longer needed". I'm not entirely certain why you re-posted the comment: it's much more applicable to the older version of the answer than the current one.
    – wizzwizz4 Mod
    Commented Feb 26 at 9:56
  • @wizzwizz4 It might be a good idea to check before deleting if that flagging is really true. As mentioned did the edit not resolve what the comment marks. Also, I did not 'repost' the comment, but wrote a new one - which of course was similar as the items pointed out still exist uncorrected. Thie new one seems to have vanished again. What was it this time? Hard for me to tell, but it feels almost as if someone tries to use moderation to suppress open communication about the topic to force a certain PoV. Doesn't exactly sound like a healthy proceeding.
    – Raffzahn
    Commented Feb 29 at 2:21
  • Comments are not permanent. Moderation standards for comments are different to standards for posts, because this is required by the system: it's difficult to preserve comments, and they'll always be prone to selective moderation by the most flag-happy. (We try to clean up comments wherever appropriate, to counteract this, but the site's a bit too big now for one person to read all of it, Stack Exchange doesn't provide a mechanism allowing us to coordinate, and easing up on comment deletion makes bias worse.)
    – wizzwizz4 Mod
    Commented Feb 29 at 9:41
  • @wizzwizz4 Sorry,but that sounds like a weak excuse. Comments are the only way to point out problems with a question or answer. Deleting them must be subject to due diligence. If one's unable to check validity (time or knowledge), then better not follow thru. Flagging is a tool to exert influence, thus it needs to be checked well. Otherwise one may assume moderation is either played or active trying to force a certain impression.
    – Raffzahn
    Commented Feb 29 at 11:01
  • The moderator tooling surrounding comments is broken in a variety of ways (example), comments can sometimes be deleted by a single flag (criticism), and moderators can't even see when this happens. The way you want comments to be handled is quite sensible, but it's inconsistent with how the software works: trying to do it that way will just lead to inconsistency and disappointment.
    – wizzwizz4 Mod
    Commented Feb 29 at 13:19
  • Regarding that specific comment: I think your point is addressed by revision 3 (made in response to your comment), but if you disagree, I can undelete one of the comments to save you the effort of retyping it. (And it will get flagged and deleted again, but you've asked nicely, so I'm willing to keep clicking the 'undo' button every few days.) This doesn't scale, though: I'd appreciate any thoughts that might lead to an actual solution.
    – wizzwizz4 Mod
    Commented Feb 29 at 13:23

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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In this case, the comment you replied to (referring to PCem) was deleted by its author, leaving only the short question and your reply:

@user3840170 it's the behaviour any implementation based on public available documentation should expose.

This makes no sense out of context, so I deleted it, as per standard procedure. I have restored it for now, just to help confirm that you're not losing your marbles, but I expect it will be deleted again next time it's flagged (whether that's in hours or years).

While we try to preserve comments that contain useful information, comments do vanish without reasonable explanation: that's part of how Stack Exchange works, and not something moderators can do anything about. If you want such comments to be more permanent, I recommend microblogging – ideally on your own website, or one run by a long-term-viable non-profit that values Cool URIs, so it doesn't all disappear. In this specific instance, you can write a new version of the comment that stands alone: such a comment would probably stick around until the next database dump, unless it ended up migrated to chat (which, at present, usually leads to the comments becoming non-public).

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  • The same thing just happened to me and I also thought I was going senile. Then I remembered reading this answer!
    – Mark Williams
    Commented Feb 28 at 16:04
  • 1
    It's a strange feeling, isn't it?
    – Raffzahn
    Commented Feb 29 at 2:21

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