Mysteriously deleted comments

Question

In this answer ScottRowe and I had an on-topic comment exchange that was mysteriously deleted. As best I recall, this is what it contained:

• Scott asked about the chance that a God hypothesis would be falsified in Solomonoff induction. This comment was deleted.
• I responded that it's actually an infinite family of hypotheses, some of which would match the observations, so it's just a question of how long the shortest program is. This comment remains.
• Scott asked about dividing by an infinite number of hypotheses. This comment was deleted.
• I explained that Z is a sum of the probability mass, not the number of hypotheses, and takes on a value between 0 and 1. This comment was deleted, NOT BY ME.
• Scott said we'd need a computer the size of a planet to calculate these probabilities. This comment was deleted.
• I explained that yes, we cannot calculate them exactly, but we can make comparative estimates about which type of hypothesis would have a shorter or longer minimum description length. This comment was deleted, NOT BY ME.

Perhaps Scott deleted his comments, but two comments of mine were also deleted. By whom, and why? I feel these comments add something to the answer.

Answer 1

It is your answer. If the comment thread adds something to the answer, you should edit your answer, to summarize what you have learned from that exchange or improve it based on the feedback you've received. Don't just leave important information in the comments. We want answers to be self-contained, so people don't have to read the comments to get the information they need, and to be written well for someone encountering them for the first time. If someone gives you feedback, usually responding with a comment containing more information is not the best way to handle it. Instead, revise your answer to improve it based on the feedback, and then flag their comment as 'no longer needed'.

Stack Exchange works differently from other sites people might be familiar with. This isn't a discussion forum. The purpose of comments is not to support open-ended discussion and back-and-forths on topics related to the question. The purpose of comments is to suggest improvements to the answer or highlight a flaw in the answer. In most cases, comments should normally be transitory, and lead to an edit to the answer. If you find yourself engaged in a discussion or back-and-forth or debate with someone in the comments, it is likely that you have gone beyond the purpose of comments.

Comments are second-class citizens and are routinely deleted. Don't put important material in the comments. There are multiple other options for how to respond that are often more constructive: if you can answer the question, write your own answer, taking into account what you've learned; if you can improve the answer, edit the answer to improve it and make sure all relevant information is found in the answer; take the discussion to chat; or sometimes, it is best to hold your peace.

Stack Exchange is not intended for discussion or debate. It is a site where people can collaborate to build an archive of knowledge, in the form of high-quality questions and answers that will be useful to others in the future. The site is designed to encourage you to direct your energy towards high-quality questions and high-quality answers.

You might also refer to "Not in comments please" -- How to handle interesting discussions, Why are comments not for discussion?, User suspended for posting too many comments....what?, Can we allow more space and possibly a larger font for comments?, How can I incentivize the conversion of some of these comments to answers?.

Answer 2

In all the SE policy documentation I’ve seen, it does explicitly say “comments are like sticky notes”, in the sense that, they are temporary, and liable to be deleted.

That said, it’s possible the policy is incomplete - hasn’t specified all possible scenarios. Since, I agree that there are some high quality comments (actually many), and I wouldn’t want a mod to delete them without feeling they had reasonable judgment.

Unfortunately, it’s not quick to try to change Stack Exchange. You could ask a mod who did that - perhaps a mod didn’t exercise the best judgment in this case.