I've been seeing this as of late. The answer to my question will be spot on but the author posts it as a comment.<p>Is SO doing something to discourage answering questions outright?
Because the SO community is so toxic I try to avoid posting answers OR questions as much as possible.<p>Comments are safer, since you won't wind up with -3 and a bunch of comments about some irrelevant detail (like coding style). Comments cannot even be downvoted and most people won't flag them unless they're legitimately abusive/trolling.
This is from what I've heard. I use SO all the time but don't really post, so don't quote me on this.<p>The community can be fairly tough on people who are wrong or missing part of the answer. People who aren't extremely experienced sometimes feel scared that their answer may not be the best for whatever reason and feel a lot of heat. This is also true for "stupid" questions. If you ask a bad question on SO you can feel the heat as well.
SO doesn't do anything to make this a better option really. I mean, you can always delete your answer if it goes negative. You can even get a badge for it. (<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/help/badges/38/peer-pressure" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/help/badges/38/peer-pressure</a>)<p>This is annoying for people answering the questions too: what should I do when I know the answer but it's already in the comments? Duplicate and rake the points for it? Leave it be and leave the question as unanswered?
I answer questions almost everyday on SO. The only time I leave an answer as a comment is if I'm not really sure if it'll work and it's a shot in the dark. I'll also do it if I'm not sure of the experience level of the OP or what they have tried.<p>For example I would leave the comment "Have you tried some_method()?" if I think that might solve the problem if it hasn't been tried and it's not immediately clear if it has been tried or not. If it works I'll post it as answer if it doesn't I'll use that info to further debug.<p>There are also times I leave the answer as a comment when I shouldn't. If it's a dupe or I'm going to close it based on it being a typo or missing closing bracket or some other on sense typo. I'll point out their mistake and vote to close.
If there's an answer to your question in the comments, type it up, make it better, and answer your own question if it will make the internet better. That's the point. The gamification is just a good way of encouraging the desired behaviors.<p>The goal is to help people, and nobody is going to beat Jon Skeet anyway.