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Occasionally I make a mistake or leave out some detail in an answer or a question. Usually someone will politely point out the error in a comment. Then there may be a little back and forth discussion through more comments. Usually this all results in me making some change to my original post.

After this point, ofttimes none of the comments make sense. Should we clean up after ourselves and delete the comments? What if only one side deletes his or her comments? Then the remaining comments make even less sense.

It's not a big point, I suppose, but I have often wondered about best practices and protocol in this situation.

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    Thanks for the up vote, kind stranger :) Now I have enough points to up vote the excellent answers to this question.
    – wcm
    Commented Aug 26, 2009 at 16:20

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I would cleanup yours and trust the other user will do the same in time. If there is a particularly unique reason the comments must be removed, flag the post for a moderator and let them know why, and they can delete anyones comments.

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I usually leave another comment that I've changed the answer, mark the changes clearly (or explain them) in the answer, and leave the comment trail as an explanation. I might go back and delete one of my comments on someone else's answer if they clean up their answer in a way that makes my comment inapplicable. If they followed my practice, though, I would probably leave it for context.

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    That's a good practice!
    – Jarrod Dixon
    Commented Aug 28, 2009 at 1:47
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Yes, I believe you should remove comments that have no relavance anymore. You are right, they do not make any sence anymore after corrections have been made. I will leave a comment up until the issue has been resolved or if it is a bad answer, it just gets deleted hopefully.

Of course the exceptions are bacon and waffle comments...

You can also flag any comment that is not of use anymore. It will be automaticly removed with no moderator intervention after it has been flagged so many times.

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    ... and BUNNIES
    – Brad Gilbert
    Commented Aug 26, 2009 at 16:22
  • ... and FNORDs ;o)
    – wcm
    Commented Aug 26, 2009 at 16:26
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I generally delete my own single comments if the post owner fixes the issue they address, but don't delete my parts of a conversation to avoid leaving the stub.

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