The comments to this question Excel 2013 32bit and 64bit crashing on form were removed when the asker accepted my answer but the actual answer and quite a few 'Things to try' steps was in the comments on the answer. The answer itself isn't what fixed his issue and now the comments are removed and unavailable to anyone else having this issue. We were prompted to stop commenting and start a chat but neither of us had the needed 50 reputation to do that. It might be an idea to add a link to the archived comments instead of deleting them in case the answer, as in this case isn't the answer but the correct answer is in the comments.
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The idea of comments is that they are ephemeral and should not be counted on as a place to write important information. Only use them to ask for clarification.
You will find the comments here, and I would like to ask you to include all the relevant information in the answer itself.
If you think about it from a visitor's perspective, it makes a lot of sense. At Stack Exchange sites we try to remove the noise from the signal, and a chatty comment thread is all but helpful when you're just looking for a quick solution to the problem.
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I used the question as an example as until you answered my query I had no access to the comments. If the comments were archived it would remove the noise from the post and if the answer didn't solve the problem they could perhaps have a look at suggestions in the comments. I have noticed quite a lot of people offer answers as comments instead of as answers. But you have answered my question and I will up date the answer to the example question with other steps we tried. Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 16:41
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1@Ramhound Did you even look at the original post? I proposed an answer that the asker of the question tried. It didn't work we then had a conversation in comments as we couldn't chat as we were both under 50 rep. We eventually came across an answer that worked. I wasn't able to amend the answer I first proposed as I had no access to the comments where the steps we took were. The above suggestion was for us to have access to the comments but from an archive of some sort so as not to clutter the original Q&A session. Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 20:48
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@Ramhound This is your comment on the same post: I sort of want the information to be in the answer itself. So when you delete this particular workbook from your Google Drive in the future this question and the eventual answer can continue to help people. – Ramhound The eventual answer was no longer in the post. It wasn't because of what I have said above. Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 21:02
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@Ramhound You're missing the point. I agree with you and slhck that the post shouldn't be cluttered with comments. I wanted to access the comments to update the answer to help others with the same or similar problem. Also other posts may be in the same situation. It was a suggestion. Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 21:08