Board Thread:Wiki discussion/@comment-28016818-20130206090716/@comment-3308937-20130207171403

Interceptor402 wrote: Mineko Charat Lucky wrote: Interceptor, not deleting old comments is like not cleaning up the Recycle Bin. Sooner or later it'll pile up to a mountainous size that will be a problem in the future. No analogies, please. this isn't a theoretical discussion, this is an actual proposal with real-life consequences.

What specific problems are caused by "excessive" comments? Are there space issues for Wikia? Do moderators get annoyed by how long that comment transfers take when pages are re-named for arbitrary reasons? Give an indicator of specific value that can be measured.

There are no problems with excessive comments, we have no space issues (that I know of) and if a moderator has a problem with renames taking a little too long then they probably shouldn't be moderating.

The only reason, I see, to mass delete old comments is to make the comment section look and seem cleaner. Main argument against keeping them is that there's no reason to keep old comments, as they're not reliable sources of up-to-date information.

Keeping them comes back by asking the age old question "why?" Keeping comments doesn't hurt anyone and only serves as a way to eradicate information that isn't all that relevant for the pure sake of doing it. Old comments have purpose in being like fossils, they preserve how things were back when they were created. The use that old comments get comes from feelings of nostalgia, boredom and curiosity, they serve as a way to entertain many users who find entertainment in reading old patch notes, removed items and the like.

All in all, I don't see much of a reason to get rid of them but I also don't see all that much of a reason to keep them. If I had to choose I'd probably side with keeping.