Please, do not answer in the comments. Stack Exchange sites are designed to have a question and answer(s) format; use the answer section to post answers to the question.
Here are some reasons for this:
- Your response is less likely to be seen. Comments don't bump questions to the top of the active filter, but new answers do. We want our site to appear active!
- A vital part of Stack Exchange is allowing the community to indicate the value and usefulness of answers by voting up or down. The default sort order causes good content to rise to the top. Comments can be upvoted, but are not sorted by vote. They cannot be downvoted if they are wrong.
- Comments don't contribute to our answer ratio or answer rate. As a beta site, we need to work on improving those numbers. An "answered" question is one that has an upvoted or accepted answer. No matter how awesome the comments on a question are, the system won't consider it answered.
- Unlike posts, comments are not eligible for edits to fix typos, update links, and make other corrections that improve and maintain the quality of the site.
- Comments do not support their own comment threads, so their content is difficult to discuss and clarify.
- Deleted answers can be seen by their authors and users who have gained the moderator tools privilege, so they may often still be salvaged or undeleted after deletion. Only moderators can see deleted comments.
- Comments cannot be marked as accepted answers. Great answers deserve to be recognized by the asker.
- Comments are intended to be temporary.
Further reading:
- The "comment everywhere" privilege (Help Centre)
- Answer or comment: what's the etiquette? (meta.SE)
- Please stop posting half answers and dumb advice as comments (askubuntu.SE)
This is a reproduction of a similar post that I wrote on the Meta site for Veganism & Vegetarianism.
