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When comment threads get long, the system raises an automatic flag. One of the options from the moderator UI is a button, "move comments to chat". This creates the chat room and copies the comments but doesn't purge them. That's how "move comments to chat" used to work everywhere.

There is also an entry on the moderator menu on a post for "move comments to chat". Recently this menu option was changed to add a checkbox for "also purge the comments", to much moderator rejoicing. Now, instead of (0) read through comments, (1) move to chat, (2) purge all comments, (3) show deleted comments, (4) undelete the one with the link to chat, after reading the comments we can do it all in one step. That's great!

Except if we're handling this kind of flag, the sequence is: (1) see flag, (2) read through comments, (3) scroll back up to the post menu (which is above 20+ comments), (4) move, (5) dismiss flag. It sure would be nice if the "move to chat" button available in the flag UI offered the same purge option that the mod menu does. That would reduce the process down to: (1) read, (2) click the "move" button, (3) check "and purge".

(You might even consider checking that box by default; when do moderators not want to purge comments that were problematic enough that they chose to send them to chat?)

It's not a lot of clicks, but it's not just clicks -- there's all the scrolling (or paging) to get to the menu from the end of the comments. Sure, all this only adds several seconds; it's not a major hindrance. But it's a minor one and it seems like it wouldn't be hard to improve.

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    +1 The winner from anything that helps tame comment trails is focussed Q&A.
    – PolyGeo
    May 27, 2016 at 20:59

1 Answer 1

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I think the comparison of number of steps needs to be adjusted slightly; it should be something like this:

  • Currently: (1) see flag, (2) read through comments, (3) scroll back up to the post menu (which is above 20+ comments), (4) move, (5) dismiss flag.

  • With this feature: (1) see flag, (2) read through comments, (3) move to chat (from the floater at the bottom of the page), (4) dismiss flag.

That's still an advantage, but I think it's good to be precise about what the improvement is.

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  • Fair enough; I hadn't noticed that I'd included "see flag" on only one of the two lists. Fortunately, that step is easy -- no mouse action at all! (Once you're at the post at all, I mean.) I numbered the steps for convenience, but not all steps are of equal difficulty -- so just counting them doesn't tell us everything. May 27, 2016 at 21:19

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