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Popular questions, and answers, have a good possibility to generate off topic comments. Like this question about blood. (not the best good example)

For questions there is a guideline. But I could not find one for comments. So, What is the Stackexchange Comment Etiquette?

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    $\begingroup$ Also, there's the Privileges page on commenting which has some guidelines on when you should/shouldn't comment. $\endgroup$
    – DaaaahWhoosh
    Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 16:01
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks! Just what I needed! Maybe a feature request then. $\endgroup$
    – Flummox uses codidact.com
    Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 16:04
  • $\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of Can we stop the Trump jokes? $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Apr 21, 2017 at 11:04
  • $\begingroup$ My understanding, admittedly I'm new here, is that swearing is frowned upon $\endgroup$
    – Kilisi
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 23:05

2 Answers 2

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The view across the Stack Exchange network is that :

Comments exist so that users can talk about questions and answers without posting new answers that do not actually answer their parent questions. Comments are often used to ask for clarification on, suggest corrections to and provide meta-information about posts.

Comments are intentionally short, having maximum length of 600 characters, and allow only limited markup. URLs in comments automatically become hyperlinks. Each user may post only one comment every 15 seconds.

Comments are disposable: unlike posts, there's no revision history, and they can be deleted without warning by their authors, by moderators, and in response to flags.

But you are right, Worldbuilding is a lot more subjective than Stack Overflow for example. We looked at this on Parenting.SE, as another very subjective site and allow a bit more leeway:

TL;DR Version: Comments only become a problem when there are a high volume on a single question or answer, or where the content of the comment itself is of concern (rude/offensive, dangerous, etc.).

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Comments are to request clarifications, yes. But not only, not really

They are also commonly used to point out related issues. So pointing out general patterns in OP questions is not unheard of, and I believe pretty valid. Linking questions that are not duplicates, but somehow related, is valid as well.

Basically, the main question is: can this comment help make this post better, or help author to post better content in future? - if yes, then great! If no, then it probably should be removed (or not posted in the first place). But if comment is helpful and constructive, it does not have to be strictly on topic of this particular question.

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  • $\begingroup$ You sure they're not to type drivel and nitpick erroneously on the definition of a word or two which have little impact on an answer? ;) $\endgroup$
    – Kilisi
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 23:04
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    $\begingroup$ @Kilisi you mean pointing out issues that "helped" questions to get closed recently? I think I recall few more that used "exponentially" as the only "explanation" of what OP needs, but these are not visible in search, so probably downvoted and deleted already. $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Commented Apr 26, 2017 at 8:13
  • $\begingroup$ no, I meant drivel :-) $\endgroup$
    – Kilisi
    Commented Apr 26, 2017 at 8:18

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