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I recently looked at an old question of mine (well, old, but the answer & discussion this refers to happened less than 2 years ago.) After a long discussion with the answerer in the comments, I had followed the automated suggestion "Let us continue this discussion in chat", and IIRC, we did. But this link is broken now ("Page not found"). Why?

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  • $\begingroup$ It seems that users can still see deleted rooms if they have 10k+ networkwide reputation - judging from the answers to: Cannot see chat room transcript while another user can and Is there a list of SE chat privileges, and the minimum reputation required for those privileges? $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2019 at 4:30
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    $\begingroup$ I think chat is anyway not a good place for a discussion on a particular post. In my opinion, such discussion should always be in the comments below the corresponding post. Rather than suggesting to move the discussion to chat, it would seem reasonable to me if the SE software would instead remind to polish the discussion afterwards (i.e. delete comments which are not interesting for future readers, etc.). Besides -- when I see the suggestion to move a discussion to chat, it usually either makes me stop it, or if it is sufficiently important, to continue it off-site (e.g. via email etc.). $\endgroup$
    – Stefan Kohl Mod
    Mar 11, 2019 at 11:29
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    $\begingroup$ @StefanKohl Comments are really inconvenient to use if the discussion goes beyond 3-4 comments, chat has features like clearly indicating which message you 're replying to, possibility to embed images etc. which are useful. Ideally all discussions on a post would be quick and on point, but we're not living in an ideal world. $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2019 at 17:22

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That room was deleted, since it contained less than 15 messages, see this FAQ. I used my chat superpowers to undelete it, although it is bizarre that this happens for rooms created from comments. I've added two messages, so that this won't happen again.

There seems to be a feature request to make this not happen, but apparently it is a sufficiently rare corner case that SE hasn't got around implementing it yet. See also this on meta.SE.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you! I guess the fact that it said only 8 days after the discussion "This room has been automatically deleted for inactivity" really does not sound very serious ... In any case, there is quite a gap between 6 messages (when the system starts suggesting to move the discussion) and 15 (when the discussion is considered worthy to survive) which should be bridged... $\endgroup$
    – Wolfgang
    Mar 10, 2019 at 19:28
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    $\begingroup$ @Wolfgang Yeah, I totally agree. I hope terdon's post on meta.SE produces some results (although with the usual reaction times of SE I wouldn't hold my breath). In any case, if anyone has the same problem, feel free to ping me and I'll fix it if I can. $\endgroup$ Mar 10, 2019 at 19:31
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    $\begingroup$ @Wolfgang Note also that when the discussion is between three or more people the system suggests to move it to a chatroom much later, so that this problem is relatively rare. But it does happen, and it should be fixed. $\endgroup$ Mar 10, 2019 at 19:36
  • $\begingroup$ Actually I thought that even if a room is deleted (i.e., no longer shown among active room) it can still be accessed. Here are some examples of deleted rooms, where I can still see transcript: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/79123 or chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/90405 (And if you display rooms associated with MO and choose "show frozen/deleted rooms", you can find other such rooms.) $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2019 at 4:23
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    $\begingroup$ Oh, now I see - this probably depends on reputation (a user needs 10k+ networkwide to see deleted rooms): Cannot see chat room transcript while another user can. (And also:Is there a list of SE chat privileges, and the minimum reputation required for those privileges?) $\endgroup$ Mar 11, 2019 at 4:29

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