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# Different comment categories
I propose (arbitrarily) to define 6 categories of comments (but it is just a first draft proposal which must be discussed ;), the categories written in parentheses may be useless but I put them as a line of thought.:
  1. ***Relevant/useful comment*s** (e.g. like-answer comments, adding useful info).
  2. ***Question comments*** (e.g. new questions regarding the post).
  3. ***Meta/technical comments*** (e.g. "the link is broken").
  4. ***Irrelevant/useless comments*** (e.g. "Thanks" comments, not constructive comments).
  5. ***Inappropriate comments*** (e.g. abusive comments).
  6. ***(Humoristic comments)***. 
  7. ***(Off-topic)*** (could be included in *Irrelevant comments*).
  8. ***(Opinion Based)*** (could be included in *Irrelevant comments*).

# Main goal
If we consider that there is several types of comment (the list above is not mandatory but at least 3 for e.g. *Relevant*, *Irrelevant* and *Abusive* comments), the question is: **How to highlight some and on the contrary make others less visible?**.

Starting from this postulate (which can obviously be discussed), here-after are some potential solutions that could be implemented.

# Possibles Solutions
## Solutions list
1. **Up and down-vote** on comments (with optionally the total count appearing as for Q&A).
2. **Flag** on comments (already available)
3. **"*react*"** functionality (same idea of what is already available in Q&A).
      - This *react* button could permit to choose any of the comment categories (for e.g. the 6 first categories presented above).

## Solution comparison
|#| Solution | Pro | Cons |
|-|-         |-    |-     |
|1| ***Up/down-vote*** |*Irrelevant* and *Inappropriate comments* will be detected efficiently | *Humoristic* comments can get high vote count (as mentioned by @msh20) | | No distinction between *Relevant* *Humoristic*, and *Meta* or between *Irrelevant* and *Inappropriate*|
||||Vote Arrow + count take some place (for display)|
|2| ***Flag*** | Easy detection and distinction between all comment types| Maybe to restrict only for *Inappropriate comments* detection for moderator intervention (as currently done) |
|3| ****react**** button | Once the comment is "categorized", different actions can easily be implemented depending on the comment type. | More complicated for users (maybe only relevant for some communities which are inherently more rigorous with their content), staff and mod |

# Actions after categorization

Once the comment is categorized by several users or moderator intervention (whatever the solution used), different actions can be taken depending on the category selected. This topic is a bit far from the current question, but just some ideas here (in order to show the potentialities related to comments categorization):
 - **Different thread could be automatically created**, one for each comment categories (for e.g. one thread for *Question comments*, one for *Meta comments*) (but it is a bit difficult to implement with the current feature because it is the user who write the thread title currently... but the user could manually select to post his comment in some predefine thread categories, e.g. 3 predefine: *General*, *Question*, *Meta*)
 - **Relevant comments could be highlighted in the thread** (by a different font or color or background color or outline, etc.) or directly displayed without unroll the thread (for e.g. the 2 or 3 most useful comments could be displayed **without** unroll the comment thread, or just an insight if the comment is too long).
 - **Meta/technical comments could be highlighted until the link is fixed or removed.**
 - **Irrelevant/useless comments could be shallowed completely of partially** (transparency, gray color, etc.).
 - **Humoristic comments could be treated in a different way compare to Irrelevant comments** because even if it seems important to focus on the essential in comments, a little bit of humor (which is appreciated by the majority), it doesn't hurt IMO!