How is this comment necessary?

Question

In a question I posted I mentioned an example of how things work on SO and how I didn't understand how things work on this site, I was hoping someone would tell me the differences, or tell me maybe that I was wrong and things are not like that on SO. Or something along those lines. In any case it was merely informative, giving background about myself.

The first two comments I got were this:

My questions was about comments so the question asking whether I had read other posts regarding that topic was helpful.

However the next comment simply stating "This is not Stack Overflow" seems rather chatty and not relevant. I just mentioned how I am used to SO to provide people information to help them understand me and where my confusion may come from. So, how stating that "this is not SO" in a loose comment like that helps in any way? I flagged the comment as no longer needed because from the definition I don't see how that comment adds anything to my post. Is not giving me advice on how to improve my question or anything:

However the flag got declined, so when I thought I was getting the hang on how comments operate here (I have been reading many posts about comments), I think I lost it again.

Answer 1

I handled (and declined) the flag, so I should explain a bit why I did it.

One point I'd like to make is that things are . . . a bit more lax on meta sites. After all, questions and answers here are often proper discussions, a bit different from the totally rigid restrictions used on the main site. Yes, they still have to be questions and answers - the same basic philosophy applies - and yes, comments still have to be productive and constructive, but we do allow people to push the envelope a bit. I know that's understandably a bit confusing; the question-and-answer model isn't fantastic for meta discussions, and so we have to adjust how we use it.

In this particular case, I declined the comment flag because I think the comment raises a good point (although it doesn't necessarily flesh it out). Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange isn't Stack Overflow, and it never will be. Much of the Stack Exchange network's traffic comes through Stack Overflow, and so a lot of visitors to our site come from SO. A lot of them expect that things will be kind of like Stack Overflow, with fast-paced activity on threads and a lot of user activity.

The truth is, things are comparatively quiet here (well, we're still busy compared to some sites, both in terms of content, user base and overall moderation activity). Additionally, we have our own complex dynamics regarding how to make the site tick. We have more explicit policies about comments; we have rules on how to make a question subjective in the right way; we're very strict when it comes to what constitutes an answer and what constitutes a comment.

I hope people understand this. It's a problem I see on a lot of smaller sites (people having different expectations about how the site works), and it's maybe not something that's easily fixable. But at the end of the day, the important message from that comment rings true: This is not Stack Overflow.