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When typing a comment, there is no button to "cancel" comments. A cancel button does exist for editing questions... so why not also comments?

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    Think before you comment, suddenly... No need to cancel them anymore; or, just navigate away from it?
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Jan 17, 2012 at 18:36
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    Right, navigating away from a comment in progress causes it to vanish. Deleting the text (Control-A and Delete, or your OS's equivalent) also works.
    – Keith Thompson
    Commented Jan 18, 2012 at 4:38

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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When you post something, there's no cancel button. When you edit something, there is. It's simply consistency.

When you edit a comment, you get the button.

enter image description here

When you post an answer, you don't.

enter image description here

Besides the obvious, comments and posts are very different.

  • Comments are shorter
  • You cannot edit comments after a few minutes, so there's little opportunity to have multiple editors open, like when e.g. you're cleaning up a question and its answers.
  • You cannot edit others' comments, same as above. How many comments can you edit, really?
  • Comments don't have a public revision history, which means accidental edits aren't kept for all eternity.

So even if they did behave differently, it'd not surprise me.

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    > When you post something, there's no cancel button. When you edit something, there is. It's simply consistency. The difference is that the Answer box is always there. Comment boxes are hidden and only appear when you click the add comment link, and if you change your mind the box remains on screen. (Though to the credit of consistency, when you click the answer your question button, the Answer box is displayed and can’t go away since there is no cancel button.)
    – Synetech
    Commented Jun 8, 2012 at 2:06
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I agree with this. Regardless of whether it's about consistency of look or not, if I click on the comment, and then change my mind why am I prevented an easy way to cancel the comment? It feels like I'm now commited... It is such basic web functionality (yes I know, using the word 'basic' here is probably the wrong term).

The only option I've found is to refresh the page. Seems drastic for the sake of a cancel button.

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