Discussion and argument about answers

Question

Background: There was an answer on one question that referenced a personal anecdote of physical punishment. I argued against that answer, at first pointing out the fact that it was anecdotal. A discussion about this ensued between me and the answer's author in the comments, which I considered to be constructive, proceeding and civil from all sides, even though clearly adversary.

The poster of that question reported that admins removed all the discussion defending the anwser, and left only one comment, critical to answer, the in the comment section. The answer's poster, quite understandably, removed his answer thinking it the site prejudiced against his position.

My question is: Is discussion about an answer something we should discourage on this site, even to a point where it gets deleted?

If not, what would be the proper way to deal with an answer that argues something I think is incorrect? Downvote without explanation? Downvote with explanation, but without the poster being allowed to argue back? Downvote with explanation, with the poster allowed to argue back, but the downvoter not allowed to reply?

Or would downvoting an answer I disagree with because it is based on false assumptions even be appropriate, if the answer is otherwise well constructed? I don't personally think so, I'd reserve downvoting for simply poor or inappropriate answers.

One part of the problem may be that a criticizing comment (which I think everyone agrees should be ok) will lead to making the answer better if the answer's poster agrees (or doesn't do anything about it), but in case he disagrees, that same comment isn't a just criticizing comment anymore, but the first comment of a discussion.

And how are we to correct anyone's view if discussion about the basis of that view is not allowed? Or is that even the purpose of this site? (And there's also the related discussion on whether parenting topic is even valid for the SE format, on the basis that the topic inherently provokes discussions.)

With a site that will have controversial or otherwise discussion provoking topics both in questions and answers, this is an important issue to consider.

Answer 1

As someone who struggled initially with the concept of "comments are not for discussions", I have come up with my own personal compromise rule that so far seems to work fairly well.

If I disagree with a point mentioned in a question, answer, or another comment, or if I feel that some form of clarification on another user's position would be helpful, I'll comment. If my comment elicits a comment that begs a response from me, I'll give one more comment to respond. However, if the discussion looks like it will continue after the second comment, I will post a third comment requesting that any further discussion move to chat.

While there are drawbacks to the chat system, I think it is still workable, especially due to the generally low volume of activity we see in our chat room. The tools available make discussions between people who aren't online at the same time possible, although if we start seeing higher volumes in the chat room, that might become an issue (which would easily be solved by the addition of additional focused chat rooms).

The key to any discussion, though, whether a short discussion in comments or a lengthier one in chat is that answers should be either added or updated to reflect any new ideas or clarifications that result.

Answer 2

The comments were not removed without explanation.

The answerer and other participants decided to have an argument (i.e. a form of discussion) in the comments rather than taking it to chat. Pages of point-counterpoint (especially when it is mostly argument with low information density) doesn't improve the site, and isn't appropriate to the format.

The correct behavior when you believe that an answer is based on false premises or false reasoning is to downvote, comment with a short explanation of said downvote, and move on. If you have a better answer, great! Submit it as an answer.

Chat is a great place to have discussions. That's what it's for. Parenting.SE itself is not a forum for discussion -- it's a place to find information, a living reference. That reference is most usable when we condense what we have to say rather than seeding tiny bits of info amid drawn-out rants. Avoiding that particular pitfall is even more important on parenting.SE

Finally, I'm absolutely in favor of comments where asking for clarification is called for, or there's a downvote to explain. However, after that point if there is something worth saying it is either discussion (which should go in chat), a clarification/correction (which should be applied as an edit to the answer), or an alternate theory/suggestion (which should be posted as a separate answer).

Answer 3

Generally, discussions add background and depth to the answers (and questions) and as such discussion should be allowed using the comment system. Not all SE sites allow this, but parenting is a topic much more suited for discussion, than topics that have mostly clear, exact answers, like solving computer problems.

However, discussions should be allowed only as long as they keep to-the-point, civil, constructive and argumentative, and don't devolve into bickering and shoutfests.

It will be up to the mods to decide what is constructive and argumentative. Before deleting a discussion, the usual practice should be that the mod warns first that the discussion doesn't seem healthy and will be deleted if it gets out of hand.

As HedgeMage suggest in her answer, the chat could in theory provide an alternative platform for this sort of discussions. But it has a few crucial problems that would have to be solved in order for it to be accepted as a place for discussion to naturally direct users to:

• All of the discussion goes to the same general room, making non-concurrent discussions difficult to catch up on, or follow. There indeed are features implemented in SE Chat that could help with this - 1) the @-notification indication when not logged in, 2) the reply-link and 3) the ability to create a specific room. However, even with these it's evident that the system is not designed for non-concurrently discussing a specific topic, and all of the helping features are really rather cludgy. (I can elaborate on the "cludgy" if really required.)

• The name "chat" itself, and the whole chat interface suggests concurrent, non-permanent and general social conversations. However discussions need to be non-concurrent, permanent and limited to a specific topic. For the uninitiated, "take it to chat" is pretty much equivalent to "get out of here and have your insignificant discussions elsewhere on a platform that really doesn't consider your needs at all". Especially combined with the interface discouraging discussions, I expect it does not read as an encouragement to actually go discuss the issue in chat, but rather as a dismissal.

• The point where commenting turns into discussion is vague, and acutal discussion content from the comments cannot be moved to the chat, where discussion should happen. This could be helped by efficient mod enforcement, though, and could become a learned practice by the experinced users, who indeed are most likely to also start the discussion. This might not be a big issue.

To illustrate my point by counter-example: In order for the chat to really work as a discussion platform that encourages and welcomes discussion for a specific answer, there should be, on each answer, an automatic link to an (initially empty) chat room about that answer, preferably with an indicator of the number of messages there. The number visible on the answer's info would suggest permanence to the user, and the link would provide a natural way to access the functionality. Again, I of course do realize this isn't possible to do "just like that" or even at all for parenting.se, this is just to illustrate my point.

In short: The SE Chat system inherently discourages long-timespan non-concurrent discussions on a single, specific topic. Thus it isn't actually suited for discussions.

Answer 4

The points in this answer by Ilari, about why SE Chat is not suited for discussions are quite valid. However, having discussions in the comments is not a satisfactory solution either. Comments serve the site's content a lot better if they are kept as short remarks, and having lengthy discussions in them would just bloat what is designed to be a light system with too heavy information. This also fits how most other SE sites treat comments.

The are no good solutions to having discussions.

So while mature, argumentative and constructive discussions are valuable especially for parenting.se answers, in lack of an actual good solution for holding discussions, attempts at discussion should be directed to chat, even though it might be a poor platform for it.

Answer 5

I propose that we adopt the same policy as they have on photo.SE:

The site moderators will now be actively cleaning up questions and answers that have extended discussions in comments: any additional information teased out in the comments should be re-incorporated back into the question or answer, not left as a comment. Any extended discussion should go to our awesome chat system, built from the ground up explicitly for this purpose.

If you see the original asker or answerer leave a comment instead of editing their post, you should edit it back in yourself: anyone can edit a post or suggest an edit.

Because comment deletions aren't very transparent, we will be leaving the following comment when comments are cleaned up:

Commenters: comments are meant for seeking clarification, not for extended discussion. If you have a solution, leave an answer. If your solution is already posted, please upvote it. If you'd like to discuss this question with others, please use the chat. See the site FAQ for more information.

and the following has been added to our FAQ:

Can I use comments to discuss the topic of a post?

Comments are useful for getting clarifications, but not for extended discussions because they detract from the question and its answers. If you'd like to discuss anything with other users, please use our awesome chat room.

(above quote is slightly edited by me)

Update:
Jeff Atwood points out that extended comment discussions are now automatically directed to the chat room.

Answer 6

While discussions do add background and depth to the answers (and questions), the SE comment system isn't really suited or meant for them. Discussions should be directed to the chat platform.

However, to overcome the problems inherent in both the UI of the platform - which is clearly not directed towards non-concurrent discussions of a single topic - and the UI of it's relationship to the actual site, regular mod actions are needed:

Wherever a discussion appears on the comments, the mods create a specific room for that discussion. The mods also remove all the comments discussion from the answer/question itself, and copy&paste the discussion comments to the new chat room (with proper attribution of course) as a starting point for the discussion. They also leave a comment, with a link to that specific chat room, indicating that the discussion of the topic has been moved there.

It might also be a good idea to together draft some sort of initial message the mods could leave to such a newly created chat room, that would very shortly explain some specific features of chat: That @-notification to people written in chat appear also outside it, and that the chat messages are permanent so the platform can be well used for non-concurrent discussion as well.

When the site is getting out of beta, we could also ask the SE coders whether there's a chance to create an automatic link to a new chat room, associated with every answer/question, so this mod activity described here would no longer be needed.