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I strongly believe that a user, whose comment is deleted by a moderator should be notified about it.

Many moderators ask the user to remove their comments however some just remove them without informing the user at all.

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  • $\begingroup$ This has been status-no-reply on Meta Stack Exchange for a while: meta.stackexchange.com/q/117854 Though it isn't tagged, Jeff's (he's a co-founder of SE) answer says it's a bad idea. This affects the whole network though, so you should raise it on Meta Stack Exchange instead. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 15:57
  • $\begingroup$ That was a month before he left SE, so it should be an official reply, but the question there doesn't have status-declined, so I'm not sure of the situation. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:01
  • $\begingroup$ @Chair Thanks for telling me. I only searched this meta not the common one. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:02
  • $\begingroup$ No problemo! Honestly though, IMO people have been scrutinizing the SE Q&A system on that meta for years, so now it's very rare for anyone to come up with significant changes to the system which aren't provoked by recent changes in community dynamics or user interfaces/functionality and haven't been suggested before there. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:05
  • $\begingroup$ @Chair So there is no point in asking a question there? $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:06
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    $\begingroup$ @harshit54 There is no point in asking duplicate questions on the Mother Meta, and there is no point in posting feature requests like this one without previously doing a thorough search for precedent. But yeah, if you're asking about core parts of the feature set that were already in place in 2012 (say), it's unlikely that you've found something new. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:10
  • $\begingroup$ It's worth mentioning that the downvoting culture is really strong there too. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:13
  • $\begingroup$ @Chair I think it's evident considering the 3 downvotes on my question. Thanks anyways. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 17:33

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The ethos in the MSE answer linked in the comments,

Comments are third-class citizens in our system by design; they are little more than post-it notes on the units of real work, questions and answers. As such they are afforded little protection and the burden of proof is on the comment to be useful and constructive.

remains the core component of Stack Exchange's attitude towards comments on this platform.

As such, there is basically no chance that SE will implement this notification feature.

If you want something a bit more definitive, try the answer (by a former SE dev) in Notify user when their comment is removed:

There are no comment removal notifications, nor will there be.

Why? Because comments are second class. We don't see them as important - if you think a comment is important enough, it should be rolled into the post it is commenting on.

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  • $\begingroup$ Oded's answer is accepted... do you know if he was with SE at the time? If yes, we can probably take it as something as official as a status-declined tag, and add a similar tag to this question. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Chair Yes. He was hired in 2013-02 and still had associate status as of 2014-04. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 16:19
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    $\begingroup$ Now the real question these citations leave is: Are comments second class or third class? $\endgroup$
    – ACuriousMind Mod
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 17:45
  • $\begingroup$ @ACuriousMind We should ask on the mother meta. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 17:51
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    $\begingroup$ @ACuriousMind Optimizing for pearls, not sand may imply that answers are first-class, which suggests questions are second and comments are third. :P $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 17:52
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Removed comments basically fall into three somewhat-overlapping categories:

  1. The comment was part of a discussion which led to improvement in the post it was attached to. Since the improvement has been achieved, the comment can be removed.

  2. The comment didn't contribute to improving the post it was attached to, but was instead an answer, a part of a side discussion, or a joke.

  3. The comment was actively harmful in some way --- rude or spammy.

There's not any reason to notify folks whose comments fall into the first category; such notifications would just be noise.

Notifying folks whose comments fall into the third category can be actively harmful. The main reason to remove rude comments is to de-escalate tensions among people who are getting fighty with each other. Someone who is already fighty is likely to respond to a removed-comment notification by lashing out, or by repeating the troublesome remark, or the like. It's much better if those comments disappear silently: if their absence is noticed, it's likely to be later, after tempers are cooler.

I forget how notifications work if a side discussion is moved to chat. I don't think there are any, apart from the moderator comment that gets generated when the comments are moved. I'm totally okay with that, for the reasons discussed in Emilio's answer.

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    $\begingroup$ There are no notifications if a discussion is moved to chat. Which is indeed a good thing. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 29, 2019 at 13:35
  • $\begingroup$ I agree these are valid reasons but whereas the procedure to close (or delete) a question is clear the systematics of deleting comments is much less so. Maybe you can provide insight into how it is assessed that a comment is ultimately removed? $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 31, 2019 at 21:45

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