zlacker

It's not disparaging to point out a fact. The whole delete comment content but keep the comment and then add a reply comment with wordy reason for deletion of comment content is a shambles. And irrespective of whether it's on every subreddit or not, doesn't make it less so. It's basically just spam at this point.

My solution would be to simply delete the comment and PM the OP. If another user had already replied, replace the original content with a *short* reason for deletion, and PM the OP, leaving the replies in place unless they needed deleting.

>>ifh-hn+(OP)
It's a recursive issue, and this is something that Reddit could potentially improve. Reddit preserves a deleted comment's space in the comments section as [deleted]. Users who see a graveyard of deleted comments will comment to wonder why, especially if they are unfamiliar with the subreddit rules. This may require the mods to delete more off-topic comments, which worsens the issue, etc. So the established "best practice" is to delete but leave a moderator comment with an explanation so there's a paper trail.