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When I edited What databases and listing sites exist for anime, manga, etc? yesterday, I also noticed that the comments there were quite out of date. They were suggesting changes that had already either been implemented or which weren't possible with the current SE markdown. There didn't seem to be any significant benefit to keeping them around, and the thread was pretty long and useless for almost everyone visiting the page. Hence, I deleted my comments, and flagged the one from someone else as obsolete.

I checked back today, and the flag was declined. I'm not sure why. If there was any lasting value in keeping them I could understand it, but as far as I can tell these comments are not useful to anyone and have not been for months (though they were when they were posted). Furthermore, with my responses deleted, the conversation is now broken so the discussion is not even readable anymore. Based on this MSO post, obsolete seems like a reasonable flag for this situation:

obsolete — for example, criticism of a post that has been satisfactorily addressed by the author

Why was this flag declined? Did the person responding to it see some value that I've missed in the comments here? Also, in the future, in cases like this where the request is to delete multiple comments on the same post, would it be better to use a custom flag?

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I declined this flag. I thought it would be better to leave the progression of comments intact in case other new users were to want to stumble upon this and had similar ideas (e.g. make it a graphic/spreadsheet/comparison chart).

Unless the comment stick out like a sore thumb, I personally believe it is up to the poster on whether or not their comment needs to be removed.

For future reference, if you want a string of comments deleted, please set a custom flag (or ask up in chat) with an explanation, this way it gives us a better context of the events that conspired.

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  • As I mentioned in my (now deleted) comment, Stack Exchange doesn't support markdown tables or spreadsheets or anything like that. A graphic seems like a bad idea, especially on a CW post, since it would not be easily editable if anything changes (which it will).
    – Logan M
    Commented Dec 17, 2013 at 21:36
  • I personally think you should have left your comments just in case some other unknowing user and the same idea. Upvoted comment are given precedence over non upvoted comments when there are more than five.
    – кяαzєя Mod
    Commented Dec 17, 2013 at 21:43
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    As for your second paragraph, I was under the impression that deleting comments which are no longer relevant without user consent is standard practice on all SE sites in order to reduce noise. As for another user coming up with the same idea, that may happen, but I think the likelihood is not really that high, especially since the post has changed significantly since that suggestion was made and the suggestion to "include features" was essentially implemented, just not in the same format.
    – Logan M
    Commented Dec 17, 2013 at 21:52
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    Anyway I'll accept it if the policy on this site is more like "don't flag comments unless they're a serious problem". That's somewhat different than most other SE sites though AFAIK.
    – Logan M
    Commented Dec 17, 2013 at 21:59
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    You do bring up a fair point about. Personally, I just don't want to alienate any new or infrequent users with the stricter policies other older SE sites have in place (mostly due to their larger user base), since we still relatively new. We've had previous clashes with the literal enforcement of certain policies from other SE sites, when the site started, I don't want to admonish those users for not knowing better. It doesn't hurt to break from the mold at times, but if you feel it is becoming more of an issue that needs to be addressed, then feel free to bring this up at any time.
    – кяαzєя Mod
    Commented Dec 17, 2013 at 22:10
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    Not really for the moment. This is a recreation site, so I'm not as worried about signal to noise ratio and things like that. Really I just flagged because I wanted the hats, otherwise I probably would have turned a blind eye..
    – Logan M
    Commented Dec 17, 2013 at 22:12

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