Please put your answers in the answers section, even if they're short

Question

It's sometimes tempting to put short answers into the comments section of a question, rather than putting them as answers. Stack Exchange site guidance discourages this. Instead, please post answers in the answer section, where you can later edit typos, make improvements, and get upvotes.

Using the comments defeats the functioning of the Stack Exchange engine. And since comments on the question go above real answers, it's a way to get in a first word, which is unfair to the real answers — even if you didn't mean it that way.

Comment-answers also push down comments which might be used to get clarification and improve the question itself — which is the intended purpose of comments to questions. (See again the guidance linked above.)

If you have a good, succinct answer, please put it in the answer section. If you know that your comment is an incomplete answer, it's probably best to think about how to round it out. Or maybe just let someone else answer. (Or, if you really can't resist, think about coming back later after someone else answers and deleting your comment so it doesn't distract. Maybe it could even fit as an edit to another answer, or a comment to an answer, which is less harmful since at least the answer comes first.)

I have mixed thoughts on comments like "Here's a youtube video on this subject", or "Google for foo and you'll see..." That's often pragmatically helpful, which is good, but... We're pretty strict about not allowing these as answers, but having those same things as comments doesn't solve the problems noted above. (Why does this get page-position priority over full answers? What if the video is pulled or moved and no one bit a mod can edit to fix?) I think it's really better to take the time to provide at least a brief real answer along with the link.

The main exception is when the question is clearly going to be closed (and as something other than a duplicate). In that case, comments can help the user and are really better than full answers (because answer on off-topic questions encourage more of the same). Should we encourge / allow comments with helpful advice to questions we know will be closed?

On several other SE sites where I participate, comments are regularly deleted by the mods en masse even if they're helpful. I like that we don't tend to do that here, but it does mean we should be more careful of starting messiness. I know I'm guilty of all of this myself sometimes so I'm not on a high horse or anything. It's something we can all do to improve the quality of our Q&A archive.

Answer 1

When someone insists on continually answering question after question in the comments to the question it comes across to me this way:

I'm too important to be expected to submit an answer and have the community decide where in the pecking order of multiple answers it should fall. My answers should always be at the top of the page, regardless of how the other users in the community view said answers, and should be sheltered from review and correction by the rest of the community.

Such an attitude goes against the fundamental spirit of the stack exchange network in which community opinion is one of the most important mechanisms used for separating the figurative "wheat" from the "chaff".

Early on during my membership here I admit I was guilty at times of answering questions with short comments. I have since made a conscious effort to resist the urge. On occasion, when coming across a question to which I made such a comment in the past, I have even rewritten the comment as an answer and then deleted the comment.

There are times when it is difficult to ask a question for clarification from the OP without essentially answering the question. The OP may ask something vague such as, "Why did my picture turn out totally black?" Without any additional information it would be impossible to answer the question with a single succinct answer as there are many possible causes. One might make a comment that asks the OP, "Did you remember to remove the lens cap?" The OP might respond, "Oh! Silly me! That was it." In such a case the comment requesting a clarification from the OP has answered the question.

But there are many cases beyond such a request for clarification that are obvious attempts to answer the question in the comment section so that it can't be ranked, downvoted, or edited by the community at large. Often these "comments" are so long as to require bridging them over multiple comments at or close to the maximum allowable length!

Answer 2

I have to admit that I have occasionally abused comments (can't really remember which SE sites) for one of these reasons:

1. I'm too lazy to write a comprehensive answer, or don't have much time at the moment.

2. It would take more research or other real work (as apposed to just putting in words something already in my brain) than I feel like bothering with, and I know that the level I do want to answer at would make a crappy answer that may get downvoted.

3. I have a link-only answer and don't feel like elaborating, probably because I think it's a dumb question and the OP should have been able to find the linked reference easily himself.

4. The OP is being a moron, and deserves to be publicly embarassed for asking such a stupid question. However, I know that a answer like that would get downvoted.

So, a comment for something a comment isn't really meant for is just a sneaky way of using the mechanics of the system to get away with something it doesn't really want you doing.

So how does this answer the question? On one hand, this argues for comments should be aggressively policed. On the other hand, I won't be able to get away with some things anymore. However, since it would prevent everyone else from utilizing the same abuses I do (it's OK for me to do it, but I really don't want everyone else doing it), this answser is in support of being more strict with comments. Go ahead and delete them when they aren't for the intended purpose.

Answer 3

In a number of SE forums I'm increasingly likely to comment than to answer. The alternative may be to not answer at all. If moderators in a given forum (as noted by others) make a policy of destroying value by deleting useful comments, that's a problem that the site's owners need to address if they care about it.

Answers that seek to be useful rather than pretty are too often treated badly by the community and/or moderators. People who say things like "I'll upvote this answer if you reformat it entirely / phrase it in ways which suit me / change the paragraph or list structure / .... " seem to feel they are offering an inducement. They're not.

The main value I see in 'rep'is that it gives people some indication that one's answers may be valid and or useful if there is some doubt - ie "authority fallacy" fodder :-).

Effort spent prettying to keep the nay-sayers at bay can be better spent providing useful input where it seems apposite to add it.

Answer 4

Can't mods convert a comment to an answer? (I know it can be done the other way around.)

I certainly hope that "helpful" comments are not completely deleted even if they are answers. On many SE sites high-rep users will put "easy" answers in comments. For the reasons given in the OP I would prefer they didn't, but having them in comments is better than not having them at all.