Criteria for determining if a post should be a comment or an answer

Question

We have previously discussed that we don't want comments to be used for answers, but we also seem to not want under-developed answers either.

This leads to a problem where we need a reasonably clear set of criteria for determining if a post should be an answer or a comment, otherwise some posts may leave some people thinking it should be a comment while others think it should be an answer.

What criteria should we use for determining if a post should be a comment or an answer? Should we (or do we need to) have a middle ground where either option is ok?

Answer 1

The Comment Everywhere Privilege page has guidance on when and when not to comment:

When should I comment?

You should submit a comment if you want to:

• Request clarification from the author;
• Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post;
• Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated).

When shouldn't I comment?

Comments are not recommended for any of the following:

• Suggesting corrections that don't fundamentally change the meaning of the post; instead, make or suggest an edit;
• Answering a question or providing an alternate solution to an existing answer; instead, post an actual answer (or edit to expand an existing one);
• Compliments which do not add new information ("+1, great answer!"); instead, up-vote it and pay it forward;
• Criticisms which do not add anything constructive ("-1, see previous comments you scallywag!"); instead, down-vote (and provide or up-vote a better answer if appropriate);
• Secondary discussion or debating a controversial point; please use chat instead;
• Discussion of community behavior or site policies; please use meta instead.

Granted, the guidance isn't very obvious or easy to find. While the Help Center's Privileges pages feel a bit like an unused, forgotten card catalog in a library in the age of internet search, they are nonetheless part of the Help Center.

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Personally, I don't think much more guidance needs to be made: it is just guidance or recommendation after all. The guidance works best when the gentle hand of the community members politely ask people to move "answerments" to actual Answers, and the commenter creates a full-fledged Answer.

I'm not sure how much additional guidance should be provided. Over-specifying the cases runs the risk of overcomplicating the situation, and creating extra cover for "but why was my comment deleted when comment X was left alone on question Y" scenarios. Too-specific rules beget rules-lawyering.

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Full disclosure: I have violated all but the "-1, scallywag!" Criticism anti-pattern above, in comments, on multiple occasions. I am not immune from temptation to violate the guidance on occasion. I think it's important to note that the "policy" is more guidance or recommendation than dictum. Guidance/recommendation allows the community to steer behavior from amongst the populace, rather than be dictated to from on high.

More importantly, it allows for the exceptions to prove the rule:

1. Encouraging comments to first-timers. "Hi [new user], welcome to Photo-SE. This is a great answer! I especially liked [point X that you made]." I do this from time to time to hopefully provide some encouragement for a new user. This is contrary to the Compliments admonition above, but it serves a short-term use. If I were diligent and vigilant, I'd go back and remove the comment after a few days / weeks.

2. Fun. Sometimes, there are some real gems in the comments. Good ol' fashioned (and well-meaning) internet snark sometimes is gold. This is probably the canonical case of comment exceptions that prove the rule. Gems are the most brilliant in the absence of a bunch of shiny junk rocks. They should be allowed to shine.

3. Secondary discussion: I have done it many times. If it's apparent that there's going to be a bit of back-and-forth between me and another commenter, I'll actually actively churn out response comments, in order to more quickly trigger the "Please avoid extended discussions in comments; Consider moving this discussion to chat" option. Then I'll move it to chat, and flag the entire discussion chain to be deleted. Win-win.

Note that the first and third points are transitory in nature. They are short-term violation of the guidelines, followed by cleanup.

Answer 2

Any attempt to sufficiently answer the question, should be posted as an answer rather than a comment, regardless of whether it's a good answer or not. In the latter case, the better course of action would be to spent some time improving it to make it more acceptable, rather than to post it as a comment.

Remember that in the stack* system, questions and answers are the meat and potatoes of the site and comments are just condiments. Comments earn no reputation and cannot be made by new users. They are really only there to support the primary use of the site, which is to make, refine and improve good questions and answers.

When a low quality answer is posted as a comment, nobody receives credit and you get the awkward situation where the original question asker cannot mark it as "accepted". The original comment-maker may not return and other people may be unwilling to repost it as an answer lest they be seen as taking credit for someone else's work. Nobody can edit the comment itself to improve it and there's no way to comment on a particular comment except for the confusing method of @-tagging the author of that comment.

All in all, even a bad answer is better as an answer than a comment. If it's too bad to stand as an answer and there is no way to improve it, deleting it is a better solution than to post it as a comment; posting a bad answer as a comment does not make it any more appropriate.

What is completely acceptable as a comment is asking the OP for clarification on the question.

Answer 3

I think this is straightforward. This is a question and answer site, and we should focus on questions and answers.

Comments should be treated as transient. They should seek to clarify or otherwise improve the question or answer they're responding to.

If something is of high quality, it can stand as an answer. If it's not of high quality, it shouldn't be above the accepted and upvoted answers.

Comments can't be properly voted on, which defeats the collective mechanism for surfacing quality on the site. But that's just part of it — they also can't be edited to fix typos, update links, or anything else. They're not first-class objects on the site, and that's by design.

Answer 4

I think we should be more flexible in allowing and encouraging under-developed answers for a variety of reasons.

For example, so much usage is moving to mobile - and few will be typing out thesis length answers on a mobile device.

If you can answer even some of the main point of a question and add value - I think it should be an answer.

Answer 5

I don't personally have a better idea than "if it can be posted as a meaningful answer that covers the majority of the question being asked, then it should be an answer".

That is, however, still unfortunately quite subjective in trying to determine if it is an answer or a comment and doesn't even particularly lend itself to identifying an acceptable middle ground for either option to be valid.

Answer 6

The problem arises from the marginal utility of the "No answers as comments" pseudo-policy. It is a rule that addresses a behavior that some people do not like with a Draconian/heavy-handed/disproportionate solution. Short answers as comments may not be ideal, but the pseudo-policy against them is now generating more pseudo-policies.

If short answers as comments is really a problem, it should be addressed in the help center. There it can be elaborated with examples and guidelines clear to all. If it is not worth adding to the help center, then it is probably not worth enforcing and probably not worth having and certainly not worth extending with another layer of ambiguity.

It's worth noting that the referenced question that forms the basis of the pseudo-policy does not provide examples that show harm to the community from the practice. Instead, it relies on vague notions of "what people should do."

I'm open minded on this, and if someone can point to actual examples of short answers as comments and reasonably demonstrate the comment is damaging the site, I'm all for it. [1] As it stands now, the only obvious effect of the pseudo-policy is that it makes work for moderators. If we're going to go to the trouble of creating more policy, it should be done the right way via the Help Center.

[1]: Conversely, I am also open to reasonable evidence that demonstrates a marked improvement in the quality of answers since the pseudo-policy came into place.