Occasionally, I discover that the answers to a question turns into an off-topic discussion (not "off topic" to the M.Y. rules, but off topic of focusing on answering the question). Usually, it becomes a "chat" between 2 or 3 people. In short, it seems like a lot of "noise" to the point where you may as well delete the whole question, itself because of the "noise".

Here's an example of this question that I recently posted. The comments start becoming a discussion on the use of rice matzah, which is somewhat answering the question, at least at the beginning. Then, the discussion seems to become "chatty".

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    Can you edit into the question what your feature request is? Do you want OPs to be able to delete comments unilaterally? to have the daily limit on comment flags not apply to OPs? Or are you leaving it deliberately open to interpretation as long as something gets done? – msh210 Mar 18 '15 at 14:16
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    "to the point where you may as well delete the whole question, itself because of the 'noise'." I have never seen such a case. Even with infinite comments, the question is still right there on top doing its thing. – Double AA Mar 18 '15 at 14:24
  • @DoubleAA - Yes, it's one thing about the question "doing its thing". Part of the idea is satirical. Sometimes, I see more junk than it's worth, that I'm "sorry" I asked the question in the first place. At any rate, Mr. Moses's answer, below, I think, would do the trick. To be fair, I'm sometimes the guilty one of getting too involved in my own as well as other questions. When I notice the problem, I try to delete some of my useless or outdated comments. Occasionally, I delete my answers, as well. – DanF Mar 18 '15 at 15:51
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    I don't know why any amount of comments would make you sorry you asked a question if you get an answer. What do comments have to do with anything? – Double AA Mar 18 '15 at 15:53

This is a symptom of a bigger problem: comments aren't supposed to be for that kind of chatting. They're to improve the post in some way. So if somebody asks a question about something in the post, and it's not complete noise, then the best response is to edit the post to address that concern. Now the comment is obsolete and can be deleted.

We mods delete a lot of long comment threads, or sometimes move them to chat when the tools allow and there's some value in doing so. We can't move an arbitrary chunk of comments to chat, except by using the same tools you can: cut and paste.

The very best thing you can do for long comment discussions is to get them into chat early. Chat is good for that; comments are not.

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    Indeed editing to address comments is a great way to get rid of them. – Double AA Mar 18 '15 at 16:17
  • You may consider updating this given new mod capabilities. – Double AA Mar 9 '17 at 6:05

You can always request deletion of comments by flagging them. If your intent is to flag a collection of comments, the best way is probably to flag the first one, choose "other ..." as the reason, and then add a comment explaining which comments you want deleted and why.

You can also, if you see a discussion like that brewing, post a comment suggesting that the discussants continue in a chat room, and either link to Bam, the main chat room, or to a new chat room that you create for the purpose.

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