[dpkirchner]

They'd even delete chats. You'd see, in comments, someone inviting the author to chat, but the link would (in the present) take you to a 404 page. Did the question get an answer? Did chat ever work? Was something useful shared? We'll never know.

[zahlman]

The system for managing chat rooms was buggy, but the entire point of the chat rooms was to keep things out of the way long term. If the invitation comment didn't also get deleted, that was a system bug. As someone who comes by "in the present", you are not supposed to go through a chat room to figure out whether "something useful was shared". The way you answer "did the question get an answer?" is by observing whether there is an answer post underneath the question. If you didn't see one and you're trying to parse the comments, then the answer to that is no.

Those discussions are not about figuring out the answer to the question. Anyone who used them that way, for example to try to provide individualized debugging assistance, was abusing the system. The point was to iron out issues with the question, so that it can be answered. Publicly.

It was extremely by-design that comments got removed. The comment section is, per the template moderator explanation of large-scale cleanups, not for extended discussion.