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Possible Duplicate:
flagged comments disappear instantly … what's going on?

Day before yesterday I met a strange situation, one user asking OP for accepting his answer in comment so I just went to flag his comment, While at the time of flagging the user already deleted his comment(as his answer was accepted) and flag process ignored.

I just want to know from StackOverflow that what we gonna do in such situation as it completely against StackOverflow rules.

Can't we stop user to do such tricks?

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  • 3
    Why is it against the rules?
    – user102937
    Jun 18, 2012 at 15:20
  • not exactly, but I just wanted to say that If OP find the answer helpful then he surely accept but why user begging to accept? Jun 18, 2012 at 15:24
  • What action would you like a moderator to take on such a flag if you could send it? Some kind of super-deletion to make sure the comment is really gone? Ban the user from StackOverflow forever for rep whoring, when the response if the comment had been left undeleted would be, reasonably, to just delete the comment?
    – Wooble
    Jun 18, 2012 at 15:30
  • Are you sure that your flag didn't cause the deletion? See the possible dup that awoodland mentioned? Jun 18, 2012 at 15:45
  • "Hmm, I need to flag this comment! It shouldn't be here!" attempts to flag comment "Hey! Where'd the comment go? Now I can't flag it! I must immediately post on Meta! Undelete all the deleted comments so that I may flag them for deletion!"
    – user1228
    Jun 18, 2012 at 16:00
  • In other words, we'll get them the next time. Until then, keep calm and carry on.
    – user1228
    Jun 18, 2012 at 16:01
  • @SomeHelpfulCommenter as I already mention, I am just flagging and in background as User get his answer mark, he deletes his comment gradually and my Flag process do nothings. Jun 18, 2012 at 16:03
  • 1
    Your flag probably deleted the comment, not the user. See the second paragraph of this answer: meta.stackexchange.com/a/104362/168974
    – chown
    Jun 18, 2012 at 16:29

2 Answers 2

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I personally don't like "Please accept my answer if it was helpful to you" comments, for a number of reasons:

  1. What does "Accepting an Answer" mean? Too many people already leave comments about accepting answers without explaining what it is.

  2. Accepting answers is a completely optional activity. We already get a number of people accepting bogus answers just to raise their accept rate.

  3. It feels like rep-whoring.

As to users deleting their own flagged comments, I'd say that is a good thing.

There is a record kept of deleted comments. If you feel abuse is occurring, flag the post and explain the situation, but note that moderators don't consider this sort of thing a priority.

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  • As to users deleting their own flagged comments, I'd say that is a good thing. deleting because his motto gets fulfilled. Jun 18, 2012 at 15:28
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    A single flag on some accept nagging comments can be sufficient to auto delete the comment instantly. (Can't find the link right now, there's some heuristic). Seems like that's more likely what happened than a self-delete.
    – Flexo
    Jun 18, 2012 at 15:29
  • @awoodland meta.stackexchange.com/a/104362/168974
    – chown
    Jun 18, 2012 at 16:30
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Flags on posts will be automatically marked as "helpful" should action be taken on them be taken before a moderator gets chance to review the flag, for example if;

  • The post is closed
  • The post is deleted

An exception to this is if the post is edited after a VLQ flag; I believe the flag status in this circumstance is changed to "Disputed".

I can therefore only assume the same happens to comments; the flag is removed from the moderator queue one way or another.

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  • Comment flags don't work this way. I have about 10 comment flags with no outcome, even when the comments did end up deleted.
    – a cat
    Jun 18, 2012 at 15:22

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