I have recently noticed a profusion of strange comments (mostly by one particular MO member) that either are unconnected to the question/answer at hand or are weird and overly personal. For instance, the last comment on the question http://mathoverflow.net/questions/30632/theoretical-physics-why-not-just-r4 and the last comment on the answer http://mathoverflow.net/questions/32397/vectorspaces-without-natural-bases/32421#32421 . At first, I just posted comments asking for clarification. However, in retrospect that doesn't seem like a good response as it simply continues filling up the comment boxes with off-topic stuff (I've since deleted my comments).

Question : How should we deal with such things? I guess the possible answers are : 1. Flag them as spam, 2. Post comments asking for clarification, or 3. Ignore them.

ED: changing the category to "Community"

Either ignore them or flag for moderator attention depending on how bad you think the particular comment is.

Slightly off topic: is it possible to have the "Start new discussion" form default to General or Community for the category? I know I am a pedant, but recently there have been several instances of discussions that doesn't really belong in "Feature Request" appearing as such.

@Andy: I almost did that a few times myself. Precisely because the form is not completely familiar to many people is why I am wondering if we can swap the orders on the form. Maybe that should be a feature request. :)

@Kevin: I think he has already been called out a few times (for other reasons), see the remarks in the comments for

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/32340/should-algebraic-structures-closed-under-at-least-2-binary-operations-where-one-i

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/32104/should-a-standard-course-on-number-systems-be-abandoned/32105#32105

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/32231/techniques-to-bound-products-of-upper-triangular-matrices-and-their-inverses/32235#32235

I find his comments brash but (usually) not offensive. And considering that he probably won't listen to asking, I'd just ignore the comments. (But please don't let this become a repeat of the fpqc bash-fest. )

Yeah, I don't think his comments are usually offensive. They're just weird and somewhat off-topic. That's why I've always hesitated at clicking the "flag as offensive" button on them, though I suppose one could argue that they're a bit spam-ey.

My usual policy is to ignore them unless they are seriously misleading (for instance, when they concern career advice) or genuinely insulting/offensive. However, I'm seeing more and more of them lately, and I don't want them to crowd out more on-topic things.

Please, please tell me that you've actually seen disemvoweling implemented somewhere.

If not, you should file for a Patent.

Wikipedia says that the blog Making Light (which is widely aknoweleged as one of the best moderated comment sections) were the main pioneers of disemvoweling as a a moderation technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disemvoweling

By the way, I've changed the default order of the categories here on meta. (Just moved "community" to the top, so it's the default for people who don't pay attention.) If anyone would like the ordering to be different again say so here.