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A while back I had a long discussion in comments probably with somebody on the answer to this one Hard Disk:S.M.A.R.T. Stas BAD, Back up and replace

but they were deleted because comments aren't for that, chat is.. This was before a chat link would pop up.

I thought my comments would be nicely stored and had a few links there, only to find the comments gone.

Is it possible to view the comments.

And why not as a small courtesy, when comments are removed, can't the system post the comments to you, so you at least have a copy of what you commented and they're not gone.

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I checked that post and there are no deleted comments on the question or the answer. If you can find which post it was, a moderator can retrieve the deleted comments for you.

There's little value in automatically preserving comments because most of the time when they are removed, it is because they are off-topic or low quality, and comments generally have a low signal-to-noise ratio. The bother of making them available isn't worth what little value that would provide.

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  • Beat me to it. I was going to link to this answer on MSO as it's a pretty nice summary of why access to deleted comments is a bit... meh...
    – DMA57361 Mod
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 7:25
  • This might just stem from a difference in industry practice and standards (I work in food safety), but IMO record retention and traceability isn't an insignificant value? ...most of the time when they are removed, it is because they are off-topic or low quality, and comments generally have a low signal-to-noise ratio... You've said it yourself that this is a generalization, and the the criterion for evaluation is still susceptible to error or bias. At the very least, I don't see how an automated courtesy ping would be unreasonable, in case the post actually was valuable to the poster.
    – Arctiic
    Commented Jul 16, 2020 at 14:29

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