Why commenting instead of answering?

Question

I was wondering why some people uses comments to answer a question, instead of posting an answer.

I know that the easy answer would be "there's no reason, they're just doing it wrong", but I've seen people with high reputation doing this in some punctual questions, and I'm just curious about if there's any special case when a comment is better than an answer.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. A user with more than 18k reputation makes what could be a detailed answer in the comments, instead of posting a new answer.

So, in which cases is it better to comment? Is there any unwritten rule I'm missing?

Answer 1

See what I did there?

I answered the question quickly, but without the detail and formatting that would make it a good answer.

Generally a commented answer is going to be short, concise, and more likely a nudge in the best direction to take than a fully formed answer.

In your particular example he probably could have actually answered the question, but perhaps he felt that his information was too anecdotal to be considered authoritative.

In the end, it all comes down to the time people like to take to write a worthy answer.

Answer 2

It depends on the user.

In some cases, it might feel like speculation - one might not have all the information needed. In this case he's sharing anecdotal information, rather than definitive, researched cited information.

Some users just abuse comments cause they're a little too gunshy to answer. Sadly I can't ban them from commenting temporarily, so I comment back suggesting his comment would do well expanded as an answer. .