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This answer was posted recently. Werner commented. I saw this through the LQ queue, and I commented. This motivated me for this question.

That comment template:

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post.

seems like a -- typically correct -- remark, and nothing more. A user seeing this comment is left with "Well so what? I can't «critique» till I have enough rep?", and no knowledge of possible conversions. Perhaps we should add a sentence to the template to mention this? Something like:

I've flagged this "answer" for moderator attention, requesting it be converted to a comment to the question.

This way the user knows something is being done about this inappropriate placing. It is also unfortunate that the user of the linked answer can't yet flag…

2
  • As you can imagine from the autistic tone, they are added by the system via the review actions.
    – percusse
    Nov 10, 2015 at 10:54
  • 1
    If there is a reasonable man-made (i.e. not boilerplate) comment by another user, i just recommend deletion without a comment if i think it should be deleted. Those boilerplates aren't really to my liking anymore.
    – Johannes_B
    Nov 12, 2015 at 8:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Here are some points to consider:

  1. This template forms part of the Low Quality/LQ review queue "delete" reasons:

    enter image description here

    As such, it's a canned response and should cover a whole host of possible "non-answer answers". By adding this to the response, you have to ask yourself the question: "Is it really necessary to convert all non-answers into comments?"

  2. The idea behind the LQ review queue is to remove the moderation burden partially from the moderators. As such, having a canned response direct content back to them seems to defeat the purpose.

  3. Being able to comment is a privilege. Sure, it's a pain to raise your voice when you're just starting out, but there are reasons for this.

With the above in mind, I'd suggest to leave the burden of conversion-to-comment up to the community members through flagging.

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