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    Sounds plausible. I think the comment mods should also have the "move comments to chat" power.
    – PM 2Ring
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 9:29
  • 3
    Not gonna lie, this is one reason why I wanted to be a mod. On the other hand, there are also some comment moderation tools, such as: delete comment, undelete comment, move to chat, see deleted comments on a post, see comment's edit history, see users' deleted & flagged comments, etc. I wonder what's the scope of this role.
    – Meta Andrew T.
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 14:24
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    Or, we could just fix the broken comment system so it doesn't require so much intervention.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 16:38
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    Should this also include the power to simply edit comments (which very often contain typos and miss proper punctuation and can drastically lower the perceived quality of a thread IMHO)?
    – Joachim
    Commented Nov 30, 2022 at 8:20
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    @PM2Ring Please, no. Move comments to chat is one of the most counter-productive features of SE. As soon as a topic proves engaging enough that numerous people begin to chime in and share ideas - the thread gets relegated to a place where nobody will ever see it. It would be better to just have the comments get collapsed if space is an issue.
    – Mentalist
    Commented Nov 30, 2022 at 10:57
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    I disagree, @Mentalist. It only takes one more click to view the comment chat. I find "Show N more comments" far more annoying because it's not visible until you get towards the end of a long comments thread. Chat allows you to have threaded replies, post images, post one-boxed links to other questions, answers, Wikipedia articles, etc. Unfortunately, the "Move to Chat" function can't be used to move subsequent comments to the chat, so mods often simply delete those comments. But I suppose this comment thread isn't the place to debate those topic.
    – PM 2Ring
    Commented Nov 30, 2022 at 21:02
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    Related (well-received) feature request from 2012: "Make comment flagging work more like chat flagging, available to users with 10k reputation". Others by Pekka in 2013: "Make community comment moderation a more public process" and "Create "flagged comments" review queue".
    – starball
    Commented Nov 30, 2022 at 23:54
  • 33
    @PM2Ring I have participated in so many comment threads where the last message was "Let's move this discussion to chat", and then there was zero activity in the chat.
    – Bergi
    Commented Dec 1, 2022 at 20:44
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    @PM2Ring in addition to bergi's point, the main disadvantage of moving the comment thread to chat is that people really aren't motivated to click any such links - after all, there's already more than enough information on the page itself
    – somebody
    Commented Dec 2, 2022 at 13:56
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    "Currently 99.9% of comment moderation is done by mods (the other 0.1% is autodeletion by enough user flags)" I would like to see more data about this. AFAIK, most flagged comments are auto-deleted comments.
    – Braiam
    Commented Dec 2, 2022 at 18:31
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    Comments that are moved to chat are automatically deleted after not very long -- I can't count the amount of times I've wanted to see where a helpful-looking comment thread went only to see that the "moved to chat" comments link to a chatroom that has been automatically deleted. It's not just putting it a click away, but also deleting it for future users (IIRC 90 days later or so).
    – Gavin S. Yancey
    Commented Dec 2, 2022 at 21:05
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    @Ethan still, the expression should be backed by actual data, because expressions can be wrong too.
    – Braiam
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 10:41
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    -1 This is not necessary and will only give trigger-happy semi-mods more power to make the site less useful, especially the power to move comments to chat, as @Mentalist said, just like the power to cast close votes is way over-used - to the detriment of the site IMO. If a comment hasn't received 3 flags it's most likely not bad enough or the post is not visible enough for it to matter that much.
    – EM0
    Commented Dec 13, 2022 at 14:44
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    My experience has been similar to that of @GavinS.Yancey - I have tried to find useful-looking threads that were moved to chat, only to find the thread had been deleted. Plus, even if the thread is still there, most people won't click a link to it without knowing what the conversation is about. Like "oh, some people had a discussion about this - anything relevant to me?" It doesn't entice one to leave the current page and explore that wildcard. Whereas with comments we can immediately read what is being discussed. I've personally never had a positive experience with chat.
    – Mentalist
    Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 1:19
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    @TylerH Users with < 2k rep covers the vast majority of users. It took me literal years to get more than 2k rep on SO. The simple fact is, comments are necessary, whether they should be or not. Trying to brute-force people into using the site the "correct" way isn't a good idea. Rather, the site should adapt to what people actually need. Comments aren't for discussion, but neither do they have to be ethereal. My argument is that (good) comments are nearly as important as the answers themselves and shouldn't be considered transient. There's just no reason for it. This isn't a pure wiki.
    – Clonkex
    Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 11:33