Answers in the comments

Question

I haven't been as active on this site as I have been in the past. Recently, I've been looking around a little bit more, and I have noticed, possibly even more than before, many cases of people posting full answers across multiple comments in the comments section rather than just posting an answer.

I know there is a lot of instances of site policy existing in "gray areas" where different users might disagree with the severity and method of enforcement, but I feel like the rules about the comments section are mostly straightforward. If you want to say something that asks for clarification, suggests an edit, or gives additional information (like links to related, non-duplicate PSE questions, then post it as a comment. Otherwise, post it as an answer. If what you want to say doesn't fall into a comment category, and you don't think it is enough for an answer, then don't post it.

Am I missing something here? Are users just not aware of the purpose of comments and answers to questions? Are they aware but disagree with how things are? Is it not even a big deal and I should move on?

Answer 1

Answers to questions — even brief or partial answers — don't go in the comments section. They should be posted as answers.

If it doesn't fit in the comment box, don't extend over multiple comments. Post as an answer instead, perhaps with a sentence like "this is more of a comment than an answer, but it outgrew the comment box." Long, complicated comments tend to attract their own replies; posting an answer lets those replies be distinct from comments on the question.

If you notice an answer in a comment, you can

• ignore it and bemoan the death of culture
• politely suggest that the comment should be promoted to an answer
• construct your own answer based on the comment — perhaps a "community wiki" answer if you answer winds up being entirely the text of the comment — with appropriate attribution
• flag the comment or the comment thread for moderator attention
• some combination of the above

I frequently leave comments along the lines of "@whomever That seems more like an answer than a comment; please consider promoting your comment to an answer." I continue to be pleasantly surprised at how often it works.

Answer 2

Just be polite and ask the comment's author to convert. Flagging such comments for moderator attention seems petty to be honest, because moderator has to delete the flagged comment to mark the flag as "helpful". Deleted comments are inaccessible to non-moderators, even to the authors of comments themselves. So if someone's comment gets deleted, you could bet they aren't going to write it all again for the second time from memory in the answer box.

Answer 3

Yes, I fear you might be missing something here. Comments are for helping the OP clarify their question. They replicate the give-and-take of the preliminary sounding conversations in real life, even in a seminar, when somebody asks you a question: probing the level of the question and the optimal level of the answer.

They check for basic due diligence on the side of the OP, and avoid the routine disheartening point of far too many questions here: a comeback of the type "I know that, like everybody else, but that's not what I had in mind! Instead, I am asking for this... I think."

Many of the "answer comments" are of the type: "Surely you know that and you have read up on it; why, then, ..., what do you mean?" They might give the opportunity to the OP to actually get to the point, by reframing the all-too-often malformed logic involved. Regularly, I see a blunderbuss blast of answers providing alternate (fanciful) ways of reading the question, just to cover the waterfront, and (in my mind) thus driving away the curious reader repelled by the windy cacophony: real damage.

A point to delve into is the comments continuing the conversation as comments to answers instead. They might just reflect insufficiency of "answer comments" to the question!