@ff524 @StrongBad @eykanal I have the feeling that it would be better to wait a bit longer before moving comments to chat, at least after a question fell out of the HNQ.

@MassimoOrtolano which question?

In general, knowing when to move the comments is a tricky bit. If we wait too long things often get out of hand and get rude. People also get attached to the comment thread and get mad when we eventually delete them. If we act too soon, we have to keep deleting comments are reminding people to take it to chat.

@StrongBad I know it's been raised in the main meta before, but I wonder if it's time to have yet another discussion about the SE chat... The way it is now it is really quite horrible to start a chat on a topic, which motivates people to have chats in the comments. The comments are easily accessible, the chat simply is not. For better or worse, the intent really seems to be to send discussions to chat to die or to not use chat at all.

@StrongBad It was a general remark: it seems to me that (too) frequently people continue to comment, even repeating comments already given ignoring the chat (as Bryan also remarks). Moving the comments as late as possible, after the hot period has expired, could probably reduce the appearance of further comments after the deletion.

Most of the people, the SE intentions notwithstanding, do what the user interface suggests, and the more evident suggestion is comment, not chat.

@MassimoOrtolano usually, comments are moved to chat if a bunch of them are flagged. If not flagged, we often wouldn't even notice long comment threads.

Assuming a flag is accurate, then the moderator choices are: decline the flag, marking it as not helpful (which I would not want to do in most cases if it's an accurate flag), delete the flagged comment, or move the comment thread to chat

@MassimoOrtolano I am happy to do what people want. I looked a little on meta and cannot find a discussion about when we (the AC.SE community) want moderators to move comments to chat. I usually only will move things if there is a long chain and it some comments get flagged as chatty/rude.

@BryanKrause I think send discussions to chat to die is an accurate description. Discussion is really of peripheral importance to SE as a whole. As for us, we can more or less do what we want. The question is does the AC.SE community want more discussion.

@ff524 @StrongBad Thank you for your answers: I didn't know that you moved the comments only after flags have been raised, and my suggestion was based on the wrong assumption that the removal was an anticipatory action. I didn't mean to criticize your actions, and I was just thinking on how to avoid or reduce the appearance of further comments after the removal. Keep up the good job! ;-)

@StrongBad Yeah, I think this is a place where the programming background of StackOverflow does not inform the ideal format for all contexts. In SO, it's pretty reasonable to summarize the issue into a couple straightforward approaches and let people vote. In Academia.SE, and in Biology.SE where I contribute most, the comments can often be really really helpful.

I have to say, though, I've been mostly happy with how comments are typically policed on academia.SE. The main feature I would want is a way for users who know they are getting chatty to more easily move their comments to a chat, in a way that isn't going to kill the conversation. Right now that is only possible once a comment thread gets long enough.

@StrongBad Yes but that almost never works, and third parties don't join, they stay in the comments.