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Should comments like "please add details of X to your answer", "done" be flagged for deletion?

Deleting them would improve readability of the thread. The answer-relevant information they contain is already in the new version of the answer. If someone is curious about the edit history, they can click on the edit history.

(X is something that only the answerer, not the first commenter, knows the details of. Otherwise the first commenter could have edited the answer.)

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    Note there's a specific flag reason for this: "It's no longer needed. This comment is outdated, conversational or not relevant to this post.", where "not relevant" also entails "no longer relevant".
    – Mast
    Jun 19, 2020 at 11:11

2 Answers 2

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Yes, please.

Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer. That means that they should be deleted once they are no longer necessary, and flags are one way to achieve that.

There's one caveat: the 'Done' comment might ping the author of the first comment (either directly, or because the only comments are by the author of the post and the author of the first comment); if the comment is deleted before they visit the site again, they might miss the inbox notification. So it's probably better not to flag 'Done' comments too soon after they're created; not everybody is using the new Follow Posts feature.

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Yes, please flag those comments for removal if they are not relevant any more. Not only do they clutter the display, if a comment is asking for some information, this may lead people to suspect that said information is missing even after it was added. Sure, they can then verify whether it is missing or not but it takes time away from properly understanding the post.

So, leaving these comments has no upsides and only potential downsides. The addressed comment can further draw even more comments for example. "Why do you ask for X - it's in the post" adding further clutter and confusion.

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