Are comments an appropriate place for tidbits that would be bad answers, but good info for the asker to know?

Question

Occasionally, I see a question for which I don't know enough to write a good answer, but I happen to know something that I think would be useful for someone asking that question to know.

• Example 1: Arthaban wants to know how to do something in HeroForge. I don't know how to do the thing they want to do in HeroForge, so I can't write a good answer. But I do know the developer of HeroForge, who probably knows the answer. So I comment with a link to where they could get in touch with her.

• Example 2: HeyICanChan wants to know what exactly gets replaced when you take a substitution level. I can't find satisfactory rules text that would tell us what actually happens - but I have noticed a regularity that might help them out in ruling on these things in a way that makes sense, so I post a comment briefly mentioning it.

---

On the one hand, these smell a little bit like partial-answers-in-comments. On the other hand, they're not really answers - they're just things that the question makes me think the asker would probably want to know.

Are such comments acceptable? If not, is there a different venue by which it would be more appropriate to communicate this kind of information?

Answer 1

No, these aren't acceptable. These are partial answers in comments.

A "lead", an "idea", and something that starts with "not an answer but..." are all answers in comments.

Your options are:

1. Take the time to find out and write an answer.
2. Hit them up in chat.
3. Let it lie.

Usually #3 is the best, because usually the helpful tip isn't really that helpful. Most of them are some variant on "LMGTFY". Your example of "you could go here and contact the developer" - realistically, they know that, or could with a token bit of research. But they're asking here. Everyone knows they could Google or go ask the author/designer on Twitter or go post on some other forum for thing X and ask there. But that's not an answer.

Someone with the wherewithal to actually contact the developer and find out - they deserve to post an answer.

Your second example - so there's a 50% chance the lead is wrong and deceptive as to an approach, because you don't really know the answer.

I totally know everyone throwing out "tips" is doing it to be helpful. I am certainly not questioning any motives. But the fact is, these "tips" in comments are often a) wrong, b) pointless, and/or c) lead to comment arguments when people try to rebut them since comments don't have downvotes and their own comments like a proper answer does.

In general, don't do it. The likelihood you have the critical piece of information some real answerer doesn't have is slight. And by posting a piece, you disincentivize someone from writing an actual answer around that, since "Well... It's there in a comment and they've already read it... I'll go spend my time somewhere else."

Answer 2

You do technically have a fourth option. If you actually have a good, substantial partial-answer but can't finish it off for whatever reason, consider posting it as a community wiki answer in its incomplete form. Community wiki answers should be rare, because we can generally answer a question without needing multiple different experts specialized in different areas, but they are there if you want to use them and posting partial answers is still officially okay. I don't think either of the test cases you mention pass muster for that, though.