I would like to open a discussion about moving comments to chat. I propose there should be an "all or none" approach. That is, if some comments should be moved to chat, then all comments should be moved to chat.
This addresses situations like the following:
A moderator moved some comments to chat but left others, and a question was opened on meta about "mod censorship." (I think almost everyone agrees the complaint of "censorship" is unwarranted)
There is a recently active question where all but one comment was moved to chat. I can only assume the moderator is acting in good faith, but at this time there are two comments pointing out the special privilege enjoyed by this one particular comment.
Some commentary on the above. Organizations employ a code of ethics not to prevent ethical violations, but to act as a guiding force to prevent the appearance of ethical violations. For the second situation above, regardless of the moderator's intent, leaving one particular comment gives the appearance of endorsing a particular view.
This is echoed in a comment left at the bottom of the meta discussion in the first issue:
Having taken a look at the comments still on the answer, I would be inclined to say that everything should just get moved to chat. I think trying to walk the line between "Suggestion to improve the answer" and "commentary on the answer's politics" is too thin to try and walk. I don't agree with SnakeDoc that you're being unfair or biased, but I think the only way to deal with a minefield like that is blanket action.
Further discussion
Comments are not intended to be permanent (see below), so moving all comments to chat should have little negative impact.
These are my thoughts, please discuss. Thanks.
Comments can be deleted at any time, for any reason. source
Comments are intended to be disposable source
comments are considered disposable and impermanent source
Related: Why do we move all comments to chat instead of just chatty comments?