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A quick note: I'm aware of SE's position on this, which is that this isn't an issue since "nothing can truly be erased from the Internet". I'm holding off on posting a self-answer because I want to see if someone else can phrase it better, and provide a community stance on this. I'm posting this because someone has ranted about this on the main site I participate on. Also, this question isn't necessarily about me; I'm following advice here that this should be a separate post.

I've posted a number of comments on this site. I noticed that some of them are posted in chat as a result of the IPS Comment Bot since they tripped some regexes to try and catch chatty comments.

Later on, I searched for my username on chat. I noticed that just about every comment I've posted both on the main site and on the meta site has been oneboxed in the bot's testing room, regardless of whether it tripped a regex or not.

On most sites, I can post a comment, and it wouldn't really be searchable, and I could delete it at any time. However, my comments on this site are pretty much permanent and searchable; if a comment has been deleted, someone else can link the words back to me by searching in chat. On other sites, this isn't possible unless a moderator manually moves comments in chat.

Is this a problem? What should be done about it?

What if I want one of my comments oneboxed in chat to be deleted? Are such requests accepted, and if so, how do I file one?

5
  • Why is this receiving downvotes? Is it not useful, or do you just disagree with it?
    – gparyani
    Nov 11, 2018 at 2:05
  • 4
    What if I want one of my comments oneboxed in chat to be deleted? Are such requests accepted, and if so, how do I file one? - you can always try asking @Mithrandir in The Closet, but you're unlikely to get what you want - those comments are used for data collection and testing purposes. If you don't want something to stay on the internet, don't post it.
    – Mithical
    Nov 11, 2018 at 5:49
  • 4
    I don't know about the others, but my downvote is because you're making several false claims: I'm posting this because someone has ranted about this on the main site I participate on isn't about IPS comment bot, I'm following advice here that this should be a separate post is about writing an answer to that faq proposal post. All in all, this isn't useful
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Nov 11, 2018 at 9:27
  • @Tinkeringbell That user didn't like that their comments were making their way to chat in any way, whether it be by a bot or by a mod moving comments to chat. Also, it's not about writing a second answer to that question, it specifically states writing a separate self-answered question. Both those claims are truthful. Also, this is useful as a duplicate target in case someone posts a rant about this here.
    – gparyani
    Nov 11, 2018 at 9:35
  • 5
    This doesn't seem like a frequently asked question, and isn't it already answered by the main meta links you've included? I guess if you want to summarize that and write it up, I don't have objections, I just personally don't see the need for it.. Perhaps posting your self answer immediately would have gotten a better reception so it looks less like "I know the answer already, but can someone else write it up for a hypothetical visitor?"
    – Em C
    Nov 11, 2018 at 15:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
-1

The ultimate goal of the comment bot is to, hopefully, eventually, reduce the number of chatty or otherwise problematic comments... And eventually nearly all of the comment bot's chat messages are removed by a moderator or room owner.

So... two things to think about here.

  1. Make fewer comments that are likely to be picked up by the comment bot.

  2. Understand that these chat messages go away every few days/hours.

With these two things in mind, is this still a problem?

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  • 2
    I think OP may be talking about how every comment (regardless of whether it’s tagged as possibly needing moderation) is posted and searchable in The Closet.
    – scohe001
    Nov 11, 2018 at 5:41
  • True. Also, flagged comments aren't removed, they're simply moved.
    – gparyani
    Nov 11, 2018 at 6:01

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