Didn't get notified about reply to comment
Some time ago, I wrote a comment to this question. I don't remember the details, but something in the question needed to be fixed. I downvoted and left a comment saying I'd undo the downvote when the issue was fixed.
Apparently it was fixed shortly after, but I never got notified. I stumbled upon this question just now, and noticed what seemed to be a valid reply to my comment, and my original comment missing. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't see what I originally wrote, so can't judge for myself whether the issue was fixed. I undid the downvote anyway.
There were two problems here:
- I never got notified of the reply to my comment, even though the reference to me looks correct.
- Someone deleted my original comment.
It is possible that the second problem caused the first. Maybe the system removes comment notifications when the notified user does not have an existing previous comment?
Removing the original comment would have been reasonable after I had a chance to see the reply. I might have done that myself after undoing the downvote, but there was really no moderation reason to delete it in the first place. Someone could certainly disagree with my opinion, but that's not a valid reason for a moderator to delete it.
2 answers
I was the mod who deleted the comment - thanks for bringing this up.
The main reason I deleted it was that I figured that the comment was primarily for the benefit of the poster, rather than the commenter. Given that there's an edit history, even if you didn't remember the exact request you'd made, the formatting change was the only modification, so I assumed it would jog your memory if need be. It's not easy to judge when a person is likely to have seen a comment, but waiting more than a day before I delete would probably be a good rule of thumb in the future. Apologies for the inconvenience.
A secondary reason I deleted it was that it was . . . a little bit rude. Saying "Currently, this post is too annoying to read" is not really a constructive way of putting things. The use of "ridiculous" was also a bit over-the-top. Particularly given the fact that this was the user's first post, I think that it's a good idea to avoid be abrasive. First impressions of a community can have a huge impact, particularly for a community as young and small as ours.
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There is no real issue here as far as I can tell.
This was your comment:
Fix that ridiculously long line that needs to be scrolled. You could write it as a list, for example. Currently, this post is too annoying to read, -1. Ping me when it's fixed and I'll undo the downvote.
The comment was deleted 5 days ago by one of the site moderators. This means, that it was likely deleted because it was then deprecated (other comment already exists) and didn't provide further value. Because the recipient (the author) had already been confirmed to have seen the comment (because of the reply), a removal was acceptable IMO. Not removing the other comment with the ping was acceptable, too, because the mod couldn't know, whether you have already seen it or not.
Now with regards to pinging: The system looks is currently developed in a way, that the username is only matched without spaces. So the correct ping would have been @OlinLathrop and not @Olin Lathrop. Partial match pinging isn't implemented currently.
I agree, that some changes (for example an indicator, who would be pinged by a comment) are neccessary here, however, comment revamp to MVP spec is also on the top of our TODO list, so I'll defer it to then.
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