Any post that seems to be remotely close to violating the guidelines will most likely be deleted, including this post since it is Off-topic. And from what I know nobody has any control over any post except sometimes the moderators can be a little biased.
4 years ago I told a guy not to bad mouth others and reported his post but the only thing I got was a warning and my post was deleted. This happened in a thread that was not popular and had very few active participants. So it happens in most of the threads and not just AWAM.
Interesting take on an otherwise unexplained occurrence. It's possible, plausible even but I think there's more to it. You're talking to person who's been banned twice, (IMO for bugger all) & has raised tickets etc. I have, on occasion been involved in controversies & seen several commentary strands disappear. Every time this happened I understood why, even if I didn't agree with the reasons (& sometimes I did). Many posts were deleted owing to the catch-all "off-topic" designation, while others were the results of thread clean-ups, 'upstream' which got rid of all associated comments. I've read the rules, (more than once) & after 4+ years here, think I understand them well enough to avoid wilful infringements on my part, although concede that when it comes to AWAM there has been additional scrutiny because of some raging arguments, in which I was not a participant.
Whenever comments were deleted a reason was given BUT not this time when a number of comments from various fans simply vanished. What they had in common was the delivery of some home truths about development, timescale, etc. Were they unpalatable & if so, to whom? Now, it could be that in the few hours I was gone something else was posted & the result was 'the vanishing.' If so, it would have been nice to know why via a basic phrase or classification. None of the deleted comments I saw breached the rules. Was it an oversight? Possibly. I'll never know & nor will the other commentators.
So, time being precious & all that, I'll keep any comments I make to the "OFF-TOPIC" thread for the foreseeable future.