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It's sad to upvote a comment on a post that's subsequently updated in a way that renders the comment obsolete and not be able flag it afterwards.

There may well be other cases where one would want to flag an upvoted comment too.

Related:

  • From November '09: Flagging a comment which was upvoted
    Note that this was before comment votes could be undone, so one slip and you were stuck. The suggested solution there is to flag the post instead with a note about which comment to look at which is inelegant and potentially a problem as flagging a post can have repercussions beyond just bringing it to the mods' attention.
  • From June '10: Flagging a comment which was upvoted
    Also pre-comment-upvote-cancelling, which is presumed to address the problem, except that it doesn't in this case.

So here it is nearly three years later and this question lingers unresolved.

It's been positively received (no downvotes yet!), but hasn't gotten any developer response. The problem that this change would address is still a problem. The UI as implemented is still confusing: flags are generally orthogonal to votes on questions and answers, so why do comments take an either/or approach? Comments are purposely second-class citizens, but this seems like privileging them--protection for comments that should be removed!

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  • 8
    It is relevant in the context that one has accidentally upvoted a comment, when the intent was to flag it. Turning off the flagging functionality is either a bug in code, a bug in design, or a bug in implementation.
    – Iterator
    Commented Oct 27, 2011 at 13:54
  • @Iterator A different solution to your issue has now been implemented meta.stackexchange.com/q/1170/166155
    – Double AA
    Commented Jul 3, 2012 at 5:20
  • 15
    @DoubleAA - Not really. The exact situation that the OP mentions isn't handled by a 60 second time limit. Usually I 'up' a comment because I want the poster to see that others agree with a suggested edit. When this edit kicks in, 60 seconds have already passed, and the comment is now obsolete. No way I can un-up it or flag as obsolete anymore.
    – ArjunShankar
    Commented Jul 3, 2012 at 13:00
  • 7
    Like the OP states, I don't even want to un-upvote the comment. I want to flag it as obsolete.
    – ArjunShankar
    Commented Jul 3, 2012 at 13:01
  • 1
    @ArjunShankar I was referring to Iterator's problem not the OP's.
    – Double AA
    Commented Jul 3, 2012 at 14:12
  • @DoubleAA - Ah! Yes. I see that now.
    – ArjunShankar
    Commented Jul 3, 2012 at 21:08
  • 13
    I've just run into that problem with the comment to this answer. The comment was accurate (so I upvoted it). The problem was not fixed timely by the person answering, so I edited the answer to fix the problem. The comment is now obsolete, but I can't flag it as such because I upvoted it.
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Aug 12, 2012 at 20:54
  • 1
    Ran into this today here. The answer has since been updated (albeit not by the author) rendering the comment obsolete.
    – Ren
    Commented Apr 11, 2013 at 13:22
  • 1
    Oh, and now I need to add a bounty to meta.stackexchange.com/questions/133640/…, because clearly I couldn't preview my bounty, or now edit it to fix "comment gets updated" to "comment gets upvoted"....
    – Matt
    Commented May 24, 2013 at 10:24
  • 5
    I think whoever implemented this confused flagging with downvoting.
    – endolith
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 23:10
  • 3
    I hate to "me too" things but...me too. Would really like to be able to flag obsolete comments that I upvoted previously because they were useful at the time.
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Jun 28, 2014 at 12:26

6 Answers 6

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48

It turns out that this limitation exists only in the UI — the Stack Exchange backend is perfectly happy to accept flags for comments you've upvoted, it's only the button to bring up the flag dialog that's missing.

With that in mind, I've come up with a simple user script to restore the missing flag buttons:

$('.comment-up-on').closest('table').not(':has(.comment-flag)').append(
    '<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><a class="comment-flag" title="flag this comment' +
    ' as unconstructive, offensive, or spam">flag</a></td></tr>'
);

I've tested it (so, you know, you don't have to — please don't annoy the mods with needless flags), and it really works. Here's a screenshot from my flag list:

Screenshot of flag on an upvoted comment

I've included this fix in a collection of user script bugfixes and workaround that I'm calling the Stack Overflow Unofficial Patch. The version in the full script also takes care of adding the buttons to any comments loaded via AJAX, and stops them from being hidden when you click to upvote a comment.

Update: Now that a proper fix has been deployed by SE, this client-side workaround is no longer needed, and will be removed from the next SOUP release (v1.20).

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65
+150

Since one of the most common reasons a comment is removed is obsolescence, we should at least be able to flag comments as obsolete after having upvoted them.

The workaround to this problem is to flag the question or answer itself, with a custom moderator attention flag, explaining the situation and requesting the comment(s) be removed.

Source: jrg♦'s answer to Should users be able to flag comments as obsolete that they have previously upvoted? (on Meta.AU)

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+100

This is on the schedule for this week...better late than never, I suppose! It should be a simple fix, will update here when the change is live.

This change will go live in the next build. You will be able to flag after voting and more clearly see where a comment still has a pending flag from you.

Note that our goal here is to support the "I voted on this years ago and now it's obsolete" scenario, so upvoting after flagging is still disabled (provided your flag is still active).

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12

You should be able to un-vote the comment as well, the same way you can remove your vote from a question. At least if the comment is edited, you should be able to change your vote.

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7
  • 13
    May be true, but: a different matter? See Should I be able to cancel my up-vote on a comment?
    – Arjan
    Commented Aug 28, 2011 at 17:29
  • 5
    You cannot remove your vote from questions unless they have been edited. Comments on the other hand cannot be edited, so this does not apply.
    – Caleb
    Commented Aug 30, 2011 at 8:21
  • @Caleb May I ask for how long I'm allowed to edit the comment? awesomescreenshot.com/08ejgbmff (this comment is edited after posting the second one)
    – Maxim Krizhanovsky
    Commented Aug 30, 2011 at 10:20
  • You can undo an upvote for some time (not sure when the questions is being locked, but it's definitely not at the time of the vote)
    – Maxim Krizhanovsky
    Commented Aug 30, 2011 at 10:22
  • @Darhazer: There is a five minute window on comments and votes where you are allowed to change them before they lock in. The OP's question here is about coming back to comments after the post has been updated and so the comment is no longer applicable. If you voted a comment up, then the op changed their post, you can no longer flag the comment as obsolete (unless it all happens inside a 5 minute window.)
    – Caleb
    Commented Aug 30, 2011 at 10:29
  • 5
    @Caleb it seems that there is no five minute window you can remove your upvote on the comment and flag it instead, so you can undo accident upvotes. Although it's not the scenario OP described
    – Maxim Krizhanovsky
    Commented Aug 30, 2011 at 10:50
  • This has now (sorta) been implemented meta.stackexchange.com/q/1170/166155
    – Double AA
    Commented Jul 3, 2012 at 5:19
2

I agree it should definitely be allowed.... specially in cases like this one

enter image description here

Now I can remove my comments but the other one is left there and I can't really flag it. I realize I can flag the answer/question for mod's attention and explain what is going on but this is not structural at all and why would most of the users even bother... It's gonna leave us with tons of comments which we can't easily remove.

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  • 1
    While you were still talking to the other commenter, why not suggest to them to clean up yourselves, rather than flagging? (I quite often do that, and most often the other commenter cleans up too.) Also, I'd never upvote such comment.
    – Arjan
    Commented Jun 16, 2014 at 4:53
  • @Arjan: That would be fine if it always worked
    – endolith
    Commented Jul 7, 2014 at 13:51
2

This is in particular relevant with respect to network policy to flag comments rather than delete so the deletion reason is archived (cf. Feb 2013 moderators newsletter). I like to do that, but I can't for comments I upvoted because they used to be useful and such that I wrote myself.

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