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Sorry for my bad english, frenchy

This is a old question that I wanted to propose something new. (if not already proposed)

It's for comment on serverfault.

I wanted to propose that we could display the number of helpful comment in the user profile page. (like for "helpful flags")

I propose that as I think that comment on server fault does not have the same value as on like stackoverflow. Some problem are hard to diagnostic if the user does not give enough detail, even with detail sometime, and a comment can easily lead to an actual answer. So we will not "reward" users with points that help with comments, but the statistic would be show.

Generally speaking if my comment helped someone to get an answer, I feel it helped globally the community. I see it as teamwork.

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  • Not gonna happen. SE considers comments to be one tick above worthless (at best), so any comment-related features are going to be at the bottom of the list at best, when they're not outright status-declined.
    – HopelessN00b Mod
    Commented Dec 30, 2014 at 16:25
  • @HopelessN00b Yeah, I noticed that for SE. They seem to think comments are only there to ask for more code. I think they try to live with comments, as they allow to upvote comment and they filter to display those comments first. It's why I proposed to only display the statistic. It's like the 'helpful flag' stat, it show users who help to moderate while 'helpful comment' would show who bring valuable content to the community without being answer.
    – yagmoth555 Mod
    Commented Dec 30, 2014 at 18:56

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Expanding HopelessN00b ♦ comment:

In SE-Universe, comments are second class citizens. Unlike question and answer, they aren't searchable. And they can be deleted anytime without any warns. Snippet from ServerFault help center

Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer. They can be up-voted (but not down-voted) and flagged, but do not generate reputation. There's no revision history, and when they are deleted they're gone for good.

Of course only SE-developers can implement feature like Helpful Comment. But it will contradicts with the nature of comment that can be deleted without any signs.

PS: If you want to know total votes on your comments, see this query on data.SE

I propose that as I think that comment on server fault does not have the same value as on like stackoverflow. Some problem are hard to diagnostic if the user does not give enough detail, even with detail sometime, and a comment can easily lead to an actual answer. So we will not "reward" users with points that help with comments, but the statistic would be show.

+1 for your argument about the comments. Sometimes I'm too lazy to elaborate the answer in proper section (because browsing via mobile, etc). So I put some suggestions in comment and let OP clarifying if it is working solution. Because of Server Fault nature, we can't replicate the OP's problem exactly in our environment. Comments system help us get clarification (and/or troubleshooting steps).

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  • "when they are deleted they're gone for good": is that true? I thought mods could see deleted comments.
    – MadHatter
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 21:05
  • I don't know. I'm not mod :). Just doing copy-pasta from the Help Center.
    – masegaloeh
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 2:48
  • Hee hee - fair enough! I was sort of hoping that a mod might comment.
    – MadHatter
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 7:24

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