Who has the right to delete comments?

Question

In the question "The FAA is asking for medical records that I don’t want to give. May I refuse?" there was a discussion about a demand for an MRI by the FAA. This question was asked by a new user and the response was a dogpile "do what you are told", many directly accusing the user of trying to deceive the FAA. No one here has examined this person or has any medical knowledge of her condition. Many assume to know what reason she may have for not wanting to get the test or disclose the result.

I pointed out in a comment that MRIs can generate false positives. This is provably true. I did not suggest that anyone break the law or that anything like that was ok. I simply gave an alternate reason why this user might be reluctant.

Someone decided they didn't like my comment and deleted it, apparently believing that the barrage of criticism at this new user had to proceed unencumbered. So who has the right to delete comments and what is the criteria?

Answer 1

Who has the right to delete comments?

Everyone (with caveats we'll go into at the end of this answer).

Many assume to know what reason she may have for not wanting to get the test or disclose the result.

I think this is a bit of projection on your side. I am re-reading the comments and all the comments are pointing out that the request for an MRI is exactly to unearth possible undiagnosed issues before they become a problem.
Everyone is pointing out that if the FAA requested a document, not providing it will probably have consequences.
Nobody before your comment event advanced an hypothesis on the motivations of the asker, they simply pointed out that not providing the requested documents will raise questions.

I pointed out in a comment that MRIs can generate false positives.

No, you did not. You said that "MRIs are famous for creating doubt where no problem actually exists". That's much stronger, and the only proof you shared is a blog of dubious reliability on back pain false positives.

This is provably true.

That is also trivial, there is no medical exam without some rate of false positive. The question is if the rate is significant to the point of making the exam moot. You seem to suggest that MRIs have so many false positives to the point of being pointless.

Someone decided they didn't like my comment and deleted it, apparently believing that the barrage of criticism at this new user had to proceed unencumbered.

This is again you projecting.

So who has the right to delete comments and what is the criteria?

• All users can delete comments through flags.
• In most cases 2 flags from 2 different users are needed (there are exception for some keywords that trigger a system deletion with just one)
• Mods can always delete comments with one flag/button

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This said, I deleted your comment, the ones related to it, and a couple more.

I'll start citing a former mod:

Comments are ephemeral, and have some specific guidelines on how they should be used.

In my opinion, your comment was derailing the conversation without adding value to it.

The other comments were (I now deleted those as well, since there is an answer to the same effect) pointing out how not providing the documents requested by the FAA will probably have consequences, none of them was providing any kind of medical analysis.
Yours was, in a sense.

I removed it because if the asker wants medical advice on whether MRIs return false positives or not (and specifically their optical-nerve-related MRI is a false positive) they should ask a medical professional, not some random people on the internet linking blogs to back-pain MRIs. (that, btw, seems to be 404 for me now).

Do you think I overstepped and you're not satisfied with my reasoning? Please contact the Community managers with the "contact" link in the footer of the page.