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Many questions and answers get a lot of comments, even though comments are not intended for extended discussions. This issue has been raised before and some solutions have been suggested, for example:

One of the "tools" available on Stack Exchange is the Community♦-raised flag "20+ comments ...", which encourages people to move the discussion to a chatroom. I think twenty is a rather high number and would like to suggest to lower the current threshold, possibly to ten, so people are encourage to take the discussion to chat much sooner.

Update 04.09.2024: I have turned this into a feature request on Meta Stack Exchange: Make the threshold for the current Community♦-raised flag "20+ comments a site-specific parameter to allow lower thresholds.

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    Could you share whether the sites you moderate use a lower threshold and how that has affected the moderation and/or user experiences there?
    – Lowri
    Commented Sep 2 at 16:43
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    @Lowri I am currently not aware of a site that has a lower threshold; this would need to be a new site-specific feature (and therefore might not get implemented soon). On French Language SE, a lower threshold would also be beneficial. None of the other sites that I have moderated would need it, since comment discussions are last that long.
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 2 at 16:48
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    Philosophy is essentially discussion.
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented Sep 2 at 23:39
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    @ScottRowe The suggestion in this meta post is not about suppressing discussion, only about moving discussions out of the comments section and into chatrooms.
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 2 at 23:46
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    Right, but of everything I have encountered in SE, the one thing that I don't like and would eliminate from it if I could is chat. Once things have been "moved to chat" I can no longer delete my comments, and the whole interaction of people and the question becomes basically impossible and useless. Better to simply delete all the comments. Are zillions of old orphaned chat rooms of any use to anyone? At least remove them after 30 days. (Did I mention that I don't like chat and think it's a really BAD idea?)
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented Sep 2 at 23:52
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    @ScottRowe "Are zillions of old orphaned chat rooms of any use to anyone? At least remove them after 30 days." Chat rooms get frozen after 14 days of inactivity and are eventually deleted automatically.
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 2 at 23:58
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    I can see a chat that one of my questions was moved to which is 2600 days old. If comments are meant to be 'ephemeral', then embalming them in a death-room is completely inexplicable. Just delete them as needed. How about: comments simply evaporate after 12 hours?
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented Sep 3 at 1:53
  • @ScottRowe (1) What chatroom are you talking about? (2) "How about: comments simply evaporate after 12 hours?" Are you referring to comments below questions and answers or to comments in chatrooms? (In either case, that would require changes in SE's infrastructure that are unlikely to get implemented.)
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 3 at 6:33
  • Tnx @ScottRowe. The chat system on SE is (a) broken by design and (b) the comment system out here is more malfunctioning than functioning. Trying to add/modify existing stuff without addressing these issues can only worsen the situation. (The thanks are particularly for the "deathroom" comment. This is part of the "broken by design")
    – Rushi
    Commented Sep 3 at 9:01
  • It would increase the load on moderators - isn't that already a problem? I've love a way for regular users to move comments to chat, or to easily create a chatroom without having to leave half a dozen comments first. And when a mod moves comments to chat, that creates a second chatroom, with one linking to the other and duplicate comments between them, which is far from ideal.
    – NotThatGuy
    Commented Sep 4 at 11:19
  • @NotThatGuy Check the privileges pages: anyone with 1000 reps can create chatrooms.
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 4 at 11:28
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    @Tsundoku I know I can create a chatroom, but I need to 1. Go to chat.stackexchange.com. 2. Click "create a new room". 3. Type a name. 4. Copy the link of the question into the description (if I want to link back to that). 5. Select the correct "related site" (I've annoyed people when I've forgotten to do that once or twice). 6. Click "create new room". 7. Copy the link and paste it as a comment. But even if I do all that, it's not that unlikely that it'll just end up being hidden behind a link from the "main" post chatroom that a mod creates.
    – NotThatGuy
    Commented Sep 4 at 11:49
  • Tnx @NotThatGuy for articulating one more way (I had forgotten) in which SE chat is broken by design. Scott Rowe had articulated others earlier
    – Rushi
    Commented Sep 5 at 7:54
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    @Tsundoku re " The suggestion in this meta post is not about suppressing discussion, only about moving discussions out of the comments section and into chatrooms. " --> that is largely the kiss of death for useful chat interaction. || Without meaning to be rude (but possibly managing anyway :-( ) that claim sounds either naive or disingenuous. || As a moderator 'elsewhere' on SE I value commemt threads but find chat treads usually far less part of the overall site experience.
    – Russell McMahon
    Commented Sep 10 at 10:26
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    @RussellMcMahon "that is largely the kiss of death for useful chat interaction". No, comments are intended for asking clarifications and providing improvements. Most comment threads with more than 10 comments are threads that have devolved into other discussions that should be in chat.
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 10 at 12:33

2 Answers 2

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I agree.

I would also support an even lower threshold. During my time on this site, I have never seen a comment thread longer than three comments stay properly focused on improving the question. Comments almost always immediately stray into stating an aphorism, asking a different question, or providing a partial answer.

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    I agree too. Help out the moderators who seem to be doing it manually.
    – J D
    Commented Sep 3 at 19:17
  • I agree on both the question and answer. If I see that a discussion I am in will get lengthy, I currently try to start a chat. However, user started chats do not get the comments ported over, nor automatically link to the question. Having that option show up early leads to creating more useful chats, and can minimize the number of comment series that go over 20, by diverting the extended chats. 10 would be a better threshold but optimal might 3, 5, or 6. I don't think the appropriate trigger threshold for good functionality is pre-knowable before experimenting.
    – Dcleve
    Commented Sep 5 at 15:29
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    Also, by diverting chats, the actual improvement recommendations do not all get ported over.
    – Dcleve
    Commented Sep 5 at 15:31
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My probably unpopular view is that long comment threads are often useful.
I'm a moderator on another SE site and I'll convert comment chains to chat only if they get ugly - as happens. My fellow mods do it for more conventional reasons, so the site does not suffer from my bias.

I lean towards the "information is good" viewpoint in many areas, and my personal feeling is that technical comments often increase the general knowledge base usefully.

I will also suggest (strongly if necessary) to OPs that information that they add in comments be moved into the question, and on occasion I will edit the OP's post based on comments, when it seems useful - this mostly when new users are being beaten up by the system and professional-close-voters, and are in danger of having their questions closed, usually irrecoverably, due to inability to react fast enough to the demands of the system.

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    I wish I could upvote this again. Out here Conifold is more knowledgeable than anyone, And by a significant margin. And more and more his best answers are in pithy comments. Of course he's not the only one.
    – Rushi
    Commented Sep 10 at 9:43
  • @Lowri Ive said the same and in more detail
    – Rushi
    Commented Sep 11 at 2:08
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    @Lowri When the de jure and the de facto truths diverge significantly enough one has three options two kosher and one non kosher. (Kosher-1) Bend the de facto to the de facto — usually involves adding more enforcement to the (ineffective) legislation. (Kosher-2) Bend the de jure to the de facto by legalizing the status quo as legitimate. (Non kosher) Pretend there is no divergence
    – Rushi
    Commented Sep 11 at 5:48
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    In practice, comments are usually used to discuss whatever comes to mind about the question, if it falls short of a full answer. I don't see that as a bad thing. The site would be boring without discussion.
    – causative Mod
    Commented Sep 12 at 0:14
  • @causative As a moderator, you should know that you are arguing against the way Stack Exchange is intended to work. "The site would be boring without discussion." Those discussions should take place on chatrooms, not in comments. Stack Exchange is not a forum and is not designed to work like a forum.
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 16 at 12:06
  • @Tsundoku You comment applies to ne as well so I'll respond to it ( :-) ). I'm aware of the normal (+/- 2 SDs) understanding of the rules. There is a deep magic from before the beginhing of time etched on the Stack Exchange stone table, or equivalent. Aslan is not involved in this case. An SE founder (I think Jeff Atwood) at the beginning summarised the core aim of SE. As best I can remember(maybe not quite verbatim, but close): "To produce quality persistent question and answer sets that drive search engine traffic to the site in order to make a profit for the owners. ...
    – Russell McMahon
    Commented Sep 16 at 12:47

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