Why do so many people on this site write the answer as a comment, but they don't write it as answer?

Question

Why? Most of them are sure that they hae the right answer too.

Comments

This shouldn’t happen. I try to mention it when I see it — if we all do that, we can help alleviate the issue.

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They are not sure, but they think. So they don't answer it.

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There’s a lot of reasons. They might not feel like putting the effort into writing out a formal answer, or their answer might not be complete, it’s an opinionated question and they’re giving their opinion, they might have a bit of info for the asker that wouldn’t make sense as an answer, or it’s a simple two or three word answer.

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Some of them are probably the ones with links.

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Personally, I tend to comment instead of answering because I'm not completely sure I'm correct, or I am sure I'm correct from personal experience and logic but I don't have a source.

I.e I'm too lazy to check :P

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Answering a question takes the question off the unanswered list. I don't know if everyone cares about that, but I do.

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This is a few months old, but I don’t think you should do it just because you don’t have a source. To some or most people it may not matter. It just that matters it’s just answered.

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Yah it is moths old and it was allowed, so don't just go say it is not allowed.

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Also it happened a lot back then, so this post might have reduced the numbers of it, since you are just a new user

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I don't know about other people, but I like answers that are right.

Answer 1

I do it some times, write perfect answers as a comment instead of answers or write the answer as an answer but later hide it, because i know how the bandwagon and the herd effect work and is increadible strong here. Some times it doesn't make sense to answer as answers, even if is a perfect answer, even with good or official sources backing up, but we want to help the person with that question anyway and as a comment we have less trouble in doing it. The problem is that many people believe in what they want instead of what is right and he/she will probably make a mess of your answer for low importance unless you prove your point and even if you are able to do so, most people will refuse it because they want to believe that is wrong. So in resume answering as comment allow you to help that person and others with the same doubt seeing that question later, giving it the right answer but also avoiding so many trouble that should'n exist, especially if the answer is right but is not convenient. Maybe in the future if this problem goes away, people will be more sure of letting it as answers instead of comment or hidding it too much.

Comments

What does 'herd mentality' have to do with anything? If an answer is right it's right, no one is going to gang up on and be mean to an actually correct answer.

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There's too many words on this answer. Nobody's going to read that. Can you put a TLDR on your answer next time?

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@Olli I'm only 1 person. My attacking you is not "bandwagon" or "herd mentality". Second, have you really seen a right answer that everyone believed was wrong? I've seen plenty of wrong answers that people believe are right, but never the other way around in my roughly 3 years here.

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Just to be clear, i had even forgotten that you exist Sumwum, this has nothing to do with you or anyone else, don't breed paranoia.

 This answer is nothing more than a answer answering the question.

Answer 2

The person is afraid to get downvotes. They would rather get no points then losing points

Comments

I don't think most people on this site care about points.

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But they have the right asnwer. They even say so themselves