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I've noticed this happening recently: when I flag useless comments, they seem to disappear get burninated immediately.

My guesses:

  • they only disappear for me
  • each of my flags has coincidentally made the post hit the automatic deletion threshold
  • they actually disappear get burninated because I'm awesome
  • something else?

What's really going on?

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3
  • 13
    Of course because you are awesome!!!
    – Oded
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:23
  • @yoda I see what you did there. Plagiarizing my comments.
    – Josh Darnell
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:29
  • 5
    By the way your question is hilariously close to mine (which is closed) Particularly the guess at "because I'm awesome"
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 22:48

2 Answers 2

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25

Depends on what you're flagging. If you flag a comment with "accept rate" in it or one which contains a common cuss word (for various definitions of 'common'), it'll disappear with a single flag.

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  • 1
    @MattFenwick Comment flags never count towards your "helpful flag" count or the erstwhile "flag weight" :)
    – Lorem Ipsum
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:34
  • @Matt: I would assume a moderator still has to mark it as helpful and that it only gets hidden until the flag gets reviewed, which would make more sense.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:34
  • 5
    @yoda: They don't count towards your flag weight, but they're still included in your helpful flags count, and are now tracked in your flagging history. :)
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:35
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    @animuson - there's no moderator involvement. One click and the comment is gone.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:36
  • @MattFenwick No, these flags are insta-dismissed. For the other flags too, they don't mark it helpful... They can either delete/edit the comment or simply dismiss the flag (deleting it also dismisses it)... it is not a complicated UI like for posts.
    – Lorem Ipsum
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:36
  • @animuson Oh, I see — there's a new "x comments flagged" part, but still not seeing it in the # of helpful flags
    – Lorem Ipsum
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:38
  • @yoda: Mine are included, on my profile page it says I have 773 helpful, and in the flagging screen it says 719 moderator attention, 29 spam, 3 offensive, and 23 comment flags were deemed helpful, which all adds up to 773.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:39
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    I just flagged an "Accept Rate" comment, it got deleted instantly, my Flagging summary shows 1 more flag, but, as intended, it did not count as "Helpful". Looks like all is well with the world.
    – chown
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:55
  • 3
    @chown I'm so tempted to flag your comment and try it for myself.
    – Kevin
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 21:57
  • Btw, here is a SODE query I just created that returns all comments with that magical phrase: data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/60804/…. 4601 matching comments at the time of writing this!!
    – chown
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 22:04
  • 7
    @Kevin, if you want to participate on Meta Stack Overflow, you should increase your flag weight comment dismissal testing rate.
    – Pops
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 22:52
  • And now people commenting know how to get around it *sigh*.
    – casperOne Mod
    Commented Feb 4, 2012 at 0:36
  • @casper I wouldn't worry too much, it's still pretty obscure
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Feb 4, 2012 at 0:42
  • @Jeff I'm not concerned per se, as comments are second-class citizens, but sometimes too much transparency can be counterproductive.
    – casperOne Mod
    Commented Feb 4, 2012 at 1:46
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    What's an "Accept Rate"?
    – Jason C
    Commented Jul 19, 2014 at 20:40
2

It also seems that "possible duplicate" comments disappear with 1 flag, at least under some circumstances. I just flagged as obsolete a comment that said "Possible duplicate of (a nonexistent post)" (presumably the duplicate was subsequently deleted), and the comment instantly vanished.

(I'm not sure whether the system checks that the linked post does not exist, rather than only checking whether it says "possible duplicate".)

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