Is it possible to allow the poser of a question to change the status of a reply to comment or answer? [closed]

Question

I am wondering if it is possible or problematic to allow the poster of a question to modify the status of responses to their question as comments rather than answers.

I use the unanswered tab to find puzzles to work on.  Knowing this, I find it frustrating when questions I might pose disappear from this list when someone has "answered' it with a comment.

I think it would be beneficial to allow both the person who posed the question and the person posting the response to change the nature of the response to answer or comment.

Comments

Lance, your best bet, in my opinion, is to subscribe to the RSS feed of questions.  That way, you won't miss any of them.  Expecting others NOT to answer questions strikes me as unrealistic.

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Perfect example

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Exactly.

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So using this technique you believe answers my question... how would you be able to cull a list of questions that have perplexed researchers for two more that or so that do not have answers? My thought was this was only possible by clicking on the unanswered button.

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Also, why wouldn't we want to allow the poster of a question the ability to decide if indeed the responder posted a comment or answer. Though you may think you answered my question, I know you haven't. Shouldn't I have the capacity to relable your answer as a comment?

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Are you aware of the + symbol at the top right of the question? This allows you to save all posts of interests to the "My Favorites" tab at the bottom of the G2G page.  I do this often for posts I want to remember to come back to later.

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No I am not, and that is very cool thank you. Not really about the topic but an excellent tip that I am sure to use.

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Hi Lance.  I like to answer questions when I feel I can help someone, but also when I have an opinion.  Yours seemed to be the sort of question that solicited opinions, so I answered it.  By getting the full RSS feed of questions, which I check a few times every day, I no longer miss G2G discussions that interest me.  I tried following tags, but that didn't work well for me.  I tried looking at just unanswered questions, but that didn't work well for me.  I'm not part of a project associated with G2G.  I was just giving you my opinion.  If you feel this opinion is useless, I completely understand.  Perhaps you could close this question, and post another one saying, "I only want comments, not answers" and see if that works better.  I will definitely avoid it.

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It sounds like you misunderstood me. If you look about at the original question you will see an option to answer the question or comment on the question. Both ways, your response will show up in the feed. It is not that comments are not welcome, as they certainly are. It is what happens when you choose answer over comment that I am referring to.

I think comments are as valuable, if not more valuable than actual answer. Comments often give you information or new ideas how to find the answer. However, once answered, the question is removed from the unanswered list of questions.

Is there an actual reason that you think the poser of the original question should not have the ability to change the type of response from answer to comment or vice versa?

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One actual reason might be that when someone answers a question, he receives G2G points for it, but when he comments he doesn't.  Some members seem to care about that.  If there were a mechanism to allow members to change someone else's answer to a comment, there would be a flood of complaints that "You're robbing me of G2G points!"  Another reason might be that it's not always crystal clear to everyone whether a particular response to a G2G post should be categorized as an answer or a comment.  The selection is in the eye of the beholder, and in his interpretation of the words in the question and the response.  And, allowing the poser of the question to recategorize a response would not solve your problem anyway, unless each poser shared your own viewpoint that his question hadn't really been answered and remained a puzzle to be solved.  It's really not an issue worth working up any adrenaline over.

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Well it is one of those nagging things that every time someone "answers" with a "comment" that I think about. I get the point thing, and I think it was intended to spur cooperation and actually encourage helpful  input. I do agree there are a group of people who are motivated more by points than by providing meaningful contributions. And I also think if someone's posts are consistently changed to comments and they are consistently loosing points and then notice this, maybe they will actually spend some more time on the question. In really do not understand why someone else would care how their response was classified if it weren't for the point system so I am at a loss as to why it would matter .. except for what I have already pointier out... the removal  from the unanswered list

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Answering brings the question back to the top of the list. Sometimes I use that to nag!

Answer 1

It actually infuriates me when people answer a question by commenting.  That means the question stays in the Unanswered Questions list - and I leap on it with joy, thinking "I can answer this!", only to find that someone else has already given a reply which answers the question, and no further answers are needed.

It also doesn't help my work as an Integrator, looking for truly unanswered questions.  I'm not looking for points.