User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-9426728-20130521220444/@comment-188432-20130522173705

As SOTO has said, the number next to the talk button is the total number of edits to the page. The number therefore almost never tallies with the number of comments.

However, I do feel compelled here to draw a line between blanking and archiving. They both have similar effects, but the latter is allowed by policy, while the former is not.

Archiving can certainly profoundly affect the apparent "fit" between these two numbers. You'll note, for instance, that Doctor Who Wiki says the talk page has been edited close to 300 times, but when you go to Talk:Doctor Who Wiki, you see only a message from me … and the archive box.

If you do have examples of genuinely blanked talk pages, please give them to me or another admin for investigation, because that's straight up vandalism. Users do not have the right to remove even their own comments, under T:DISCUSS.