Has it ever been officially stated that question authors shouldn't answer to requests for clarification in the comments?

Question

I recently asked a question author to add information from answers (posted as comments) to "request for clarification"-type comments also into the original question.

The negative feedback to this comment made me wonder if we have ever "formally" established that the comment section should not be used to add this kind of clarification replies. The Help center section on how to ask a question does not mention how to reply to requests for clarification, nor does the page on the comment function state that clarifying details concerning the original question should not (or at least not solely) be added as a comment. I also have not yet found a canonical meta Q&A that clarifies this.

So - is there a StackExchange online resource to which we can refer users so they understand the expected way to address clarification requests?

Answer 1

I also have not yet found a canonical meta Q&A that clarifies this.

Update: Based on @V2Blast's comment below, I've updated the Community How do comments work? FAQ to add an explicit statement that clarifies this.

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Unfortunately, I have to agree with you:

• Even in the canonical How do comments work? FAQ there's no (direct) mention of this. The closest is from the "When should comments be deleted?" section:

  Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer. You should not expect them to be around forever. Once a clarification has been made, an edit added to the post to include new information, or the issue in the comment is otherwise resolved, it can be deleted.

  That seems to me to be an implicit statement, at least, that edits should be made to the post to include the new information. But it's not explicit, and it's buried in the "deletion" section ...

• Nor is there a separate FAQ that I can see.

• Nor is there even a faq-proposed, unless it is missing the comments tag.

The only question I've even found on MSE addressing this is https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/298658/902710, which is (oddly, IMHO) closed (and downvoted) as a duplicate of the canonical How do comments work? FAQ, even though it doesn't address that particular question.

That said, it seems to be so universally accepted as fact that I see questions like:

• (MSO) Should you comment after you edit your question in response to comments?

• (MSE) Warn new users to edit important information into the question upon their first attempt to comment on a question of theirs

• (MSE) Nudge low rep users to edit comment answers into their question text as well. Note that while a staff member marked this status-declined (for other reasons), they did say, "I see the merit in ensuring new users learn to edit clarifications into their questions", which I would take as an explicit statement on a representative of Stack Exchange that this is the correct action to take.

• (MSE) is it acceptable to update a question with content added in comments? includes:

  Yes, comments are meant as temporary notes to the question. Any information in there which is necessary to answer the question should be in the question itself.

  But also not what I would consider "canonical", of course.

Possible approach

Is there a StackExchange online resource to which we can refer users so they understand the expected way to address clarification requests?

If we (the community) are in agreement that such a resource doesn't exist today in acceptable form, then perhaps the right question is, "Should there be ...?"

I would love to see the Comment FAQ updated to be more explicit. Something like:

They are not for:

• The question author to provide additional information which may be needed to formulate an answer. Important information from the original author should be edited into the question instead.

• Suggesting corrections that don't fundamentally change the meaning of the post; instead, edit the post or suggest an edit

• Answering a question or providing an alternate solution to an existing answer; instead, post an actual answer (or edit an existing one)

• Compliments or criticisms which do not add any new information to the post (e.g. "great answer", "this is bad", etc.); instead, upvote or downvote (and provide or upvote a better answer if appropriate) ...

But I feel a bit weird actually editing that into the Community Wiki myself. I'm just not sure how that works - I know it needs review, at least. Maybe a pointed in the edit comment to point back to this question?

Answer 2

A : HOW can anyone "understand whatever expected way" reading whatever "formally established" document "officially stating that authors shouldn't" use one in particular ?

I can accept, comply, obey... or any other verb of that lexical field but... understand ? Well ! Surely not !

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B : Why should such a constraint be enforced by whatever official document ?

If evidence (such as the one that could produce the necessity to benefit from advanced editing facilities) is not enough to convince the author to re-edit the question then there is no reason for a priori & arbitrarily depriving this author (AND the commentator being replied to as well) from the unique advantage commenting offers :

Having the commentator being replied to advised that some message is awaiting in its inbox.

I must personally acknowledge that when I ask for more information about a question, I appreciate being advised when some answer (to my comment) has been posted.

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C : We could also mention consequency. Because official statements must preserve consequency.
If, for some somber reason I ignore (and regret as much), anyone on SE needs more credit for commenting than for asking some question, it must consequently mean that... comments are more creditable than questions !
Then why should anyone resort to less creditable ways for answering ?

Of course this last argument is purely rhetorical. But it should be understood in the context of official documents.
You find it just absurd ? (me too) but... it is only logic. If what I wrote sounds absurd (like sounding absurd...;-) ) it must mean the first proposition (needing more credits to comment than to question) is absurd.

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D : Ultimately, why should we need any additional arbitrary rule telling us what we should do ?
Can't we just expect contributors to learn by themself from their own experience how they can optimize their questions/answers ratio. (provided they care of course)

Provide tools, not policy !