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I made two comments on this question. The first was asking for clarification (the original version was just a code dump), and then, once more details was added to the question, I commented with a link to helpful information. That second comment I made has now been deleted.

I'm aware of this meta question, which seems very similar to this one, but I don't understand how something along the lines of "Sounds like you should look into (link to relevant tutorial section)" would be rude/offensive (and the OP thanked me for the link - his comment is still there). I'm also pretty sure I didn't delete the comment. I checked Google's cache but its snapshot is from the period between my two comments, so no help there.

Did I delete my comment for no apparent reason, and then completely forget that I did so? Or was it deleted by a moderator? Or was there some kind of database hiccup? I wouldn't be surprised if I deleted it myself, but, like I said, I don't remember doing so, so if someone could clear this up that would be nice.

Update: The comment in question was flagged as "not constructive" and deleted by a mod (see comments on this question). As of this moment, all comments on that question have been nuked.

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  • 2
    Well, you should have killed your original comment once it became obsolete. The missing one sounds reaonable and worth keeping, at least if the link-target is good and as long as there's no answer using it.
    – Deduplicator
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 1:01
  • 13
    Your comment was flagged as not constructive and was subsequently deleted by a moderator. Them's the rolls with comments, easy come easy go.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 1:04
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    May I ask how a link on how to work with dictionaries is not constructive to someone asking about how to work with dictionaries?
    – TigerhawkT3
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 1:08
  • 1
    We can't see who flagged a comment or why, generally.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 1:46
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    Should I not be commenting with links to relevant instructions/documentation?
    – TigerhawkT3
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 4:40
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    Comments are not suppose to have lasting information - you could have posted an answer if you feel that OP could not find any existing information themselves.(Also I think more appropriate action on that question should have been close as duplicate... but I know nothing about python to be sure of it).
    – Alexei Levenkov
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 4:47
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    I didn't feel that I had enough content for a complete answer, so a comment seemed to be the way to go. I'm not sure if there would have been a duplicate, as the question isn't about a bug he encountered, or some sort of gotcha - he just didn't know how to use the data structure he's working with. Should I have put that link as an answer, and then quoted a bunch from its content? Are link-only comments just as bad as link-only answers?
    – TigerhawkT3
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 4:54
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    IMHO moderators should look more closely at what they're deleting. What is being said here is basically regardless whether a comment really is constructive or not, I can get a comment deleted just by flagging it as non constructive.
    – AStopher
    Commented Aug 9, 2015 at 9:09
  • Your comment was perfectly fine. A moderator must have deleted it by accident.
    – Epic Byte
    Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 1:52
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    i don;t think the moderators look deeply into the question. They are quick to mark things as duplicate and its happened to me a lot of times.
    – tushortz
    Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 16:10
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    @Tushortz Duplicates are usually marked by other users (either those with a gold badge in the tag or with close vote privileges.) Only mods can delete comments, though (except maybe in some cases a certain number of flags auto-deletes?)
    – reirab
    Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 16:14
  • oh i see @reirab
    – tushortz
    Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 17:00
  • I still don't understand why a mod saw a "not constructive" flag on my comment, looked at my comment, decided it was not constructive, and deleted it. And then deleted all the comments.
    – TigerhawkT3
    Commented Aug 20, 2015 at 20:56

1 Answer 1

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I didn't feel that I had enough content for a complete answer, so a comment seemed to be the way to go.

You're free to do this, but... Don't be surprised when your comment is unceremoniously removed.

If you want to post an answer that'll hang around long-term, then post an actual answer. If you're not sure it's complete, then just be honest about that; you can always come back and flesh it out later if the asker clarifies the question to the point where you can leave a complete answer.

OTOH, if the question is badly unclear (as this one was), you should expect it to eventually be deleted anyway (as this one eventually was) - which will of course delete your comments with it. If your intent is to provide transient assistance to a lost programmer, great! The system is working as it should.

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