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21 votes
1 answer
283 views

Is it okay to ask a user to accept an answer for his/her question?

Recently I have seen questions where few good answers were given but no answer was accepted and no comment was left on any answer i.e no activity from the user who asked the question. Is it okay to ...
binW's user avatar
  • 13.1k
18 votes
6 answers
326 views

When do comments become answers?

I find myself solving someone's problem step by step through the comments. When I finally find the solution, should I move the final solution to an answer and delete the comment or leave the comment ...
AlwaysTalkingAboutMyDog's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
168 views

Flag answers that should be comments?

As new users can't comment, they sometimes posts answers that would have been comments if they could. Should we flag them so they can be cleaned up properly, or leave them alone because that's how the ...
Egil's user avatar
  • 14.4k
15 votes
3 answers
301 views

Comments in the answer section from new users

This addresses all the new users out there: Every day here I see new users commenting in the answer section and saying things like I don't have the rep to comment but.... It seems redundant that ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.8k
14 votes
1 answer
278 views

When are "you can do this different thing instead" answers considered good?

Sometimes someone asks how to do something that is very hard, unlikely to have the intended effects, or fundamentally impossible or meaningless due to an insufficient understanding of what it would ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
321 views

Is it ok to comment and see if it works before answer?

Is it ok to comment an answer to the OP because you can't test it, and then you answer if it works? Or should you just answer?
fosslinux's user avatar
  • 3,871
12 votes
1 answer
178 views

If the answerer answers the question in the comments of their answer, should the OP accept that answer?

Let's say the question is: How do I open Terminal Quickly? I have been looking for an easy way or short-cut to open the Terminal quickly, so I don't have to find it in the Dash. And the answerer ...
Mochan's user avatar
  • 1,698
8 votes
4 answers
287 views

Are people getting "rep shy"? || About "commentswers"

I keep bumping into questions with perfectly good answers that are not marked as accepted or can't even be marked nor voted because they're in comments. Even if you politely ask the "commentswerer" to ...
JorgeArtware's user avatar
  • 3,577
7 votes
4 answers
311 views

What should I do for comment answer

I asked a question: Error libx264 not found. And I got a comment which is good answer. After I got the correct answer, I want to see what community thinks I should do: Vote up the comment only. ...
Muath's user avatar
  • 409
6 votes
2 answers
205 views

Should I ask for additional information in comments, or start an answer and ask questions there?

I noticed on another QA post here that someone mentioned that as a rule of thumb they keep comments short, and anything longer than short goes in an answer. A few times, I've asked for more ...
belacqua's user avatar
  • 23.4k
6 votes
1 answer
60 views

Should comments that answer a question be marked obsolete after full answers are posted?

Sometimes a comment is posted that answers a question. This is not even always wrong--sometimes the comment is insufficiently detailed to constitute a good answer. Then, sometime later, a good, ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
156 views

Is there a way to deal with people who repost other people's comments as answers?

When users see a question, they often write comments like “did you try x?” to clarify if a novice user has already tried some trivial steps before posting the question. Now there's almost always some (...
Donarsson's user avatar
  • 2,729
4 votes
5 answers
134 views

What to do with answers that should be comments, but get deleted?

As the reputation requirement to comment is pretty high (50), many new users who want to contribute to the site use answers to leave a comment on questions, e.g. to request additional information ...
Byte Commander's user avatar
  • 109k
4 votes
1 answer
122 views

What to do when an answer is just a (very good) request for information?

What should I do when I come upon a question that's missing some information, which has been requested...but only in an answer that does not actually attempt to answer the question, nor even to ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
81 views

If people have put answers as comments, is it OK for me to copy their comment to an answer myself? [duplicate]

I encountered a question where a person had put an answer in the comments, then the OP had commented again saying that answer worked, and thanks. Here was the specific question, but I am asking in a ...
thomasrutter's user avatar
  • 37.4k
2 votes
2 answers
449 views

When should I answer and when should I comment?

I enjoy helping out on this forum. Recently I have become more active in that. Can someone tell me when I should comment and when I should answer? How do you know which one to use? In the answer ...
walttheboss's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
91 views

When is a possible answer a comment?

Most probably this is a duplicate but I looked for some guidance on this in both help and meta and I was not able to find. When someone is asking a question on which the answer is not directly clear, ...
Requist's user avatar
  • 2,419
-2 votes
1 answer
118 views

Moderators should be able to mark questions as answered

I know about similar requests, but after stumbling over this question (just an example; question poster answered himself using edits instead of an answer) I thought you should at least add an option ...
Byte Commander's user avatar
  • 109k
-22 votes
3 answers
284 views

I'm probably going to get skewered for this -- You can be rude and still provide a perfectly suitable answer to a question

As the thread title suggests, I think we need to stop considering people's attitude when answering questions and helping people. If the intent is good at the end of the day, it honestly does not ...
Emandudeguy's user avatar