Why were these too chatty flags declined on some +1 comments? [duplicate]

Question

Similar to this situation, I've had 7 recent comment flags declined on noisy comments.

These comments are just of the '+1' or 'Thanks' type:

Huge "THANKS!". :)

+100 to apachectl configtest

+10 for "Scrollen und Zoomen"

When you go to post a comment, you see this:

Use comments to ask for more information or suggest improvements. Avoid comments like "+1" or "thanks". (emphasis mine)

And Jeff Atwood said to flag these.

So... why did I have these flags declined? I know that 9 declined flags out of 521 total isn't bad, but still... why were they declined?

Answer 1

I'm the 'culprit', so to speak, for declining the three comments you're asking about.

In summary:

The Huge "THANKS!". :) comment should have been deleted (I think that was a case of me hitting the wrong option). My apologies for that one.

As for the other two, for me they were 50/50 and I could have gone either way. The reasons I opted to leave them were as follows:

• The community had upvoted these comments (one has 6, the other 5) which is relatively high, so for me this was an indication they were valued in some way.
• They added a sense of confirmation that the answer (or something in the answer) was useful/correct.
• They're relatively old (one is over 4 yrs old), so there was probably nothing to gain by deleting them.

Now, if the comments were posted today, I would have:

• deleted the +10 for "Scrollen und Zoomen" comment as it wouldn't have had the votes and doesn't really add anything significant to the answer.
• left the +100 to apachectl configtest comment alone on the basis that many users are 'nervous' when it comes to using Terminal, so for those users this comment adds some weight to what was suggested in the answer.

Finally, it's quite possible (even probable) that I was over thinking all of this since it was my first day as a Mod, so I'll be checking with the others on their view of this as well. I appreciate you taking the time to ask the question in meta and sincerely hope this doesn't discourage you from flagging posts in future.

Answer 2

Right on cue - a long discussion on how the “too chatty” standard was loose and unhelpful - we’ve done away with that flag across all sites effective immediately.

The problem

Comments are terrible; no one agrees on what they're for, or how long they should be kept. Comment flags are equally terrible, because if no one's on the same page as far as what should be posted in the first place then no one can agree on what should be removed either. On top of that, we have this confusing set of flags where two mean "noise", one means "vile", one means "moderator, help!" and one means nothing at all - the end result is that it's all but impossible to even analyze comment flagging.