The last few /askhistorians threads I've read seem to have the normal lots-of-deletions, however from the Mod replies, it would appear that people are getting up in arms about it. Even I, who don't mind the mod policies here, am disheartened to see all the [deleted]s - it just makes the sub seem no fun.
Therefore I offer a solution: kill the [deleted] threads with css.
Add this to the style sheet and the feather ruffling deletions will be hidden, and free the sub of the standard speculations about why they're there (leading to more deletions) and arguments about 'fascist mods' or whatever it is people say in response to them (leading to more deletions)
.deleted {
display: none;
}
I know this also kills the non-deleted replies, but they are useless and frustrating as well, since they just make me wonder about the mysterious deletion that they refer to.
I personally feel like the "comment graveyards" are actually pretty informative. Much like a pile of skulls, it signifies the strictness of the law here.
More seriously and leaving technical issues aside: while leaving the deletions up clearly doesn't stop all rulebreakers, the deletions are a strong sign that /r/askhistorians is a different place than your average Reddit thread. I think most people see them and realize that the rules of AH actually mean something, which is a good thing.
they are useless and frustrating as well
They are not! If follow-up comments are not just nuked with the thread, they generally will be comments with general applicability to the question rather than just specific responses to the deleted content.
To be absolutely clear about something: the subreddit moderators don't have the power to delete comments. Only the original poster does. We remove comments and can on occasion restore them.
Now, that said, the practical difficulty with what you're proposing is twofold. First, removed comments can themselves have replies that are pertinent (in particular, mod notes, but also a bad comment that can be removed often kicks off a good discussion). If we set display: none; on removed comments, then you can't see the reply chain. Second, all comments (removed, deleted, normal, whatever) contribute to the comment count on Reddit, and people notice if the count is X replies but only Y are visible and then complain or post tedious uninformed stuff about shadowbans.
Really, the bottom line is that it's annoying to get downvotes for enforcing rules here, but it comes with the territory.
Here's the one significant issue I see with that.
Let's say someone writes a two sentence answer to a question. You just happen to know a lot about that and see that he's wrong, so you write a four paragraph reply explaining what the real answer is. But instead of putting it as a top level comment you put it in response to his. Then, hanging his head in shame, he deletes his original comment.
Now because of your CSS suggestion, your comment is also invisible. Maybe you were the only guy that actually answered OPs question, but because you didn't do it as a top level comment, it's disappeared forever.
Meaningful discussions happen in response to self-deleted comments. The number of times I've gone to old questions for the FAQ to find that someone's deleted their account and all their comments in the couple months that it was asked is not an insignificant number.
For that reason alone I think it's better to have the ability to expand comment threads off of deleted/removed comments.
A better half-solution would be if we could get people to stop making mindless comments like "Woah what happened here" and "[removed]" when they see a bunch of already removed comments.
Also what /u/jschooltiger said about the comment count mismatches.