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On Drupal Answers, while taking care of some comment flags, I noticed that a comment written on March, 2012 is reported to be deleted by a single user today.

Notice that:

  • The user who seems to have deleted the comment is not the user who asked the question
  • The user who is reported to have deleted the comment is not a moderator
  • The user who wrote the comment is now a moderator, but it was not at the time when the comment was written

How is it possible that a single user can delete a comment left by somebody else?

The comments that result deleted from a single user are two. This is what they contained. (I report the part that is relevant as for the "comments about accept rate are deleted after a single user flags them.")

It'd be good to accept the answers to your previous questions, you currently have a 0% accept rate […].

Thanks for that it's much appreciated by the community...I don't think you've actually accepted the answer though! You've voted 3 of them up, which is great, but accepting works slightly differently. There's a little outline of a tick to the left of each of the answers...If you click that it'll turn green and you will have accepted the answer as the correct one. […]

From the page listing all the flags, I get the following.

screenshot

There are two comment flags for obsolete comments that result handled by the Community user. (Truly, the Community user is reported to be the deletion user.) The "6 hours ago" reported for the "Comment Deleted" line and the "comment flag: obsolete" line match perfectly. (That is, the timestamp is "2013-09-10 06:08:01Z" for both the lines.)

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    final flag in a series of flags? Flagging accept rates used to have a fairly low threshold for deletion; if flagged as non-constructive that could lead to a fairly quick comment deletion.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:06
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    See Flags against "improve your accept rate" comments are failing for a peek below the covers that reveals that flagging accept rate comments leads to comment deletion.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:08
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    @MartijnPieters Flagging any comment leads to comment deletion. That's the point of flagging.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:12
  • @balpha: yeah, my point was more that the comment will be deleted when a threshold is reached.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:14
  • @ShaWizDowArd: Should I try that out on your comment? :-P
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:15
  • @MartijnPieters go ahead, worst case we can ask mod to undelete. :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:16
  • @ShaWizDowArd: Blam! It's gone.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:18
  • @MartijnPieters lol! Now time for a feature request asking to cancel this, with the "accept-rate" gone and forgotten. (taking measures now ;))
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:31
  • @ShaWizDowArd As I discovered, moderators cannot undelete a comment containing accept or accepting that was deleted after a user flagged it.
    – avpaderno
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 0:52
  • @kiamlaluno wow that's mean... what error you get in such case? Did you consider feature request asking to remove this filter now?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 6:25
  • @ShaWizDowArd I don't get any error; the "undelete" link is merely missing. The feature request I created is about allowing moderators to undelete all those 1-flag deleted comments. The question is listed in the Linked block.
    – avpaderno
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 6:44
  • @kiamlaluno weird, probably it's missing because the comment didn't go through the normal deletion process. Will take a look there!
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 11, 2013 at 6:45
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    As moderator and writer of a recently single user deleted comment I did not get the undelete option, over 10 years on.
    – Willeke
    Commented Jun 13 at 15:17

1 Answer 1

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From the small snippet of the comment, I surmise Clive is talking about someone's accept rate there.

Comments can be flagged for moderator attention, but if enough flags accumulate, the last flag to tip the balance causes the comment to be deleted. For certain types of comment, the threshold is lowered; accept rate comments have a really low threshold: only one flag is needed.

My guess is that the user simply flagged that comment, and his flag crossed that low threshold for comment deletion, and his name was attached to the deletion entry in the database.

I don't know the exact criteria by which a comment is seen as an accept-rate flaggable-offense. 'accept' is one keyword, 'accepted' is not, but it looks as if 'accepting' is listed as flaggable.

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    This is correct.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:16
  • @kiamlaluno: We can try that out with your comment right now if you like.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:25
  • @kiamlaluno: I flagged it as non-constructive, and it survived.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:37
  • OK, then I must add something more to the question, since the deleted comments were two. Stay tuned. :)
    – avpaderno
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:38
  • @kiamlaluno and Martjin - "accept" !== "accepted" :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:55
  • @ShaWizDowArd I know, but also the comment containing accepted had the same treatment, in the question in question.
    – avpaderno
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 12:56
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    @balpha can you share the exact filter with us, to end our endless misery? :-)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 13:01
  • @ShaWizDowArd I know. I just mean that the user thought the comment was obsolete, not offensive. I know that for the code there is just a type of comment flags, but since the information about what the user selected is kept (as the flag page shows "comment flag: obsolete"), that should be considered.
    – avpaderno
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 13:26

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