This question had certain comments by 2 users( JeffE , and scaaahu ) which although were not strictly on-topic, but nonetheless added to the discussion by providing a different viewpoint. Why were they removed ?
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3 Answers
As the one responsible for deleting those comments, the comments were flagged as no longer relevant to the discussion. Having reviewed the changes made to the text of the question, and the texts of the comments, I believed the flags had merit, and deleted them.
I'll take a little less of a hard-line stance than EnergyNumbers; comments often add a lot to the discussion, but oftentimes users request that off-topic flags be deleted to make the answers cleaner. I suggest the following:
If you have something to say which directly related to the question and is not a request for clarification or more information, post it as an answer.
If you want to add something to an answer, you can either add that point as a comment, or if it's appropriate, edit it in!
If you want to clarify a point related to to an answer, add as a comment.
If you want to discuss an answer, bring it up in chat, and feel free to add a link to the chat discussion in the comments so others can join the discussion.
Comments are ephemeral and disposable across most Stack Exchange sites (math.se and MathOverflow.se are notable exceptions). If there's anything useful that comes out of a comment that applies to the post it's commenting on, then the post should be edited to reflect the comment accordingly.
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3Your statement is factually wrong. Comments are not viewed this way on either MathOverflow or math.SE. Moderator deletion of comments especially on the former site is done very sparingly. Moreover, on these other sites editing another user's non-community wiki answer is usually not done without their explicit permission. On a site about academia, the idea that you do not alter someone else's words without their permission seems equally useful. Feb 17, 2014 at 19:06