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I've seen a few examples:

  • A comment on a post about licensing on Software Engineering indicating that the post needs clarification. The post is clear enough to know that it is off-topic. Editing for clarity wouldn't achieve anything. At best, the question may be made suitable for migration, but the best thing would be to go to the Open Source or Law Stack Exchanges and, if necessary, get help on their Meta site to write a good question that fits their subject matter and expertise.
  • A comment about editing a post to be more about a specific problem. The question was already about a particular issue, but it is a problem involving coding and the use of coding tools, which is off-topic. There is no way to salvage it for Software Engineering.
  • A comment about editing a post to be more specific and provide additional details. When I leave manual comments about this, I'll ask specific questions that would need their answers worked into the question to help properly scope a question or give the necessary details. A vague comment like the auto-generated one is more noisy than helpful to the answer. I believe that a simple close vote with no comment would be better.

Overall, the comments are falling into two general categories: those that provide the wrong guidance to a user (e.g., edit a question that is not likely to be editable into a good question for the site) or unspecific advice (e.g., add details without any indication of what those details can be).

I'm not on the receiving end of these comments, but it feels like they can be discouraging when you're told to edit your question and then it gets deleted by the community or told to edit your question with no indication of what edits it needs to be good.

On top of being noisy and potentially discouraging, moderators cannot remove them when they are wrong. I don't think that a moderator deleting the comment will stop the user from receiving a notification, but it would keep the comments section clean.

Reducing the barrier to commenting on a post is fantastic, but the comments should be helpful.

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  • 7
    See Please make the canned feedback options in the new first questions/answers queues configurable per site and Resolving Community user and "share feedback" issues in review queues.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Sep 2, 2021 at 10:01
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    Does this answer your question? Resolving Community user and "share feedback" issues in review queues
    – Tomerikoo
    Sep 2, 2021 at 10:01
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    This exposes one funny aspect, since there's only 1 reviewer per new Q&A review item if you get the feedback wrong the OP will be left clueless :D ("sent on a wild goose chase"). User posts question, gets complete nonsense comment in return.
    – bad_coder
    Sep 2, 2021 at 11:03
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    @Tomerikoo Not really. In fact, some of those ideas I'd consider harmful, like making the comments even more general. I think the whole idea of auto-generated comments just needs to be turned off. Some suggestions would be good, but a human needs to review and leave specific comments for this to be useful.
    – Thomas Owens
    Sep 2, 2021 at 11:06
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    @ThomasOwens I partly agree with you. But my point of the duplicate is that this whole post should have probably been an answer there rather then a new question
    – Tomerikoo
    Sep 2, 2021 at 11:08
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    There’s a complaint on ELL that the new comments aren’t just unhelpful, they’re toxic. I don’t agree with the assertion that canned comments should never be used on new user posts, but the terseness of these specific comments is a problem.
    – ColleenV
    Sep 2, 2021 at 11:29
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    Does this answer your question? Review queue workflows - Final release --- From Question: "We will be monitoring this post until Friday, September 10th. Report any further issues after September 10th as new questions on Meta."
    – Rob
    Sep 2, 2021 at 14:20
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    I find the entire canned comment in the review queues to be far removed from actual reviewing. If there's guidance to be done in a comment, then it should be specific. The hiding behind a canned comments from the Community user is in my opinion counter to the comment feature. And when a user replies, they usually ask more specifically about the comment made. But Community doesn't respond. According to “What have you tried” epidemic if you don't want to engage, then don't leave a comment.
    – Unconsidered
    Sep 2, 2021 at 14:53
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    The whole thing that makes SE's reviewing so good is that it's human. Having automated comments, that you can't reply to, that can't be corrected by more experienced reviewers is just a bad idea. All around. When I comment under a post with things that need to be fixed, I have never once had second thoughts because of worries about my name being associated with that. I put a lot of effort in to ensure my comments are helpful, and if I'm asked for clarification I want to be there to help. These comments just give review grinders the ability to do less and care less, with no consequences.
    – Radvylf Programs
    Sep 4, 2021 at 15:11

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