What if a comment solve the question?

Question

Good days all!

I am new to this forum, and I am trying lo learn how the "rules" here. After reading several post, such as this, this, and this, I can assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that you can use comment to ask for clarification without intention (yet) to answer the question.

What if instead of asking for clarrification, the comment is solved the problem? like this question, it turns out the "error" was the method OP used to observe wether his Arduino works or not, and the OP himself confirm that the problem is solved on comment section. My first thought is "Oh great, it solved. Nothing to do here.", but the question still comes up in the "unanswered" section. Well, nothing is wrong with it but it's make me itch. The accepted answers here, also does not cover about it.

So, what comes in my mind is turn my comment into an answer. (I've mentioned that I'm trying to learn how the "rules", right?) Is it appropriate to ask for accepting an answer?

Answer 1

Stack Exchange considers comments to be ephemeral - that is, they may be deleted. Thus an "answer" which is just a comment is ultimately not helpful. However initially you may make a comment to test the waters, and then if the OP acknowledges that this is the correct answer, we now have this problem that you mention. I suggest:

• If you are the one who made the comment which answered the question, turn it into an answer (ie. copy/paste, or retype with extra detail). Perhaps underneath the question make a further comment that you have now answered it "officially" and hint that the OP could accept the answer.

• If you are not the "owner" of the answer, make a comment asking the person who commented to turn it into an answer. You can use the @name syntax to get them "pinged" to notice the comment.

• If this doesn't achieve anything (after, say, a few days) turn the comment into an answer yourself, giving attribution to the person who made the comment. (eg. "As Joe Bloggs said in his comment ..."). I have an example of doing that here. In that particular case the OP also answered the question. This behaviour is OK - you are allowed to answer your own questions.

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References

See:

• How should I handle questions which are answered in the comments?

• What should be done with questions that have been self-resolved as a comment instead of an answer?

  We discussed this on meta.serverfault a short while ago and decided that you should Steal comments that answer the question and post them as an answer. You can always tick the Community Wiki box if you're not comfortable rep whoring.

• Also see this answer:

  Answer-comments should be reposted as answers — but this is no excuse for plagiarism

  In other words, don't try to pass the answer off as your own, if you didn't write it.

Answer 2

At another StackExchange metas you can see a tip: if you can post an answer after reading some comments, do it. Because every correct question need a correct answer, not only useful comments. So if it is your own question and comment helps you to solve the problem, invite its author to post it as answer.