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Recently I've been seeing some questions where the user wants people to check their solution or proof, and there's usually one comment that says "that's correct" and nothing else (no answers, etc). For example:

Is it possible that we add some kind of "check mark" like button that the user can press if they feel that the question has already been addressed and solved (perhaps not attributing rep points at all) even if there are no answers? I'm not saying that comments should be counted as answers, I'm just asking if it's possible to have some kind of indication that a question has been addressed. In the case of writing my own answer to these questions, of course I understand if there's been a long comment thread with people talking and they get an answer that way. But the cases in which people just post one wikipedia link, or a "that's right", it just seems rather a waste of time to write an answer for a question that's already been addressed completely.

But whatevs, it seems people are against it, so I'll let this question die.

Edit: I don’t quite understand the downvotes—I’ve looked at the other questions and it doesn’t seem like they address this particular issue. Furthermore, I think this commenting problem is still an issue, a problem that hasn’t been fixed regardless of how many questions have been asked about it. The “community wiki” solution is not very practical—I mean who wants to transcribe a whole bunch of two-word comments or comments containing a Wikipedia link as an answer? And if they aren’t getting deleted (and it seems they are not), won’t they just clutter up the site, edging out questions that actually haven't been addressed?

Certainly it is possible to post an alternative solution or whatever, but I think most cases where this happens are trivial enough that there is not much room for extension, and can simply be considered “addressed” when there is already a comment answer.

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    $\begingroup$ This issue doesn't occur just with checking a solution or proof. I've also seen quite a few cases where some sort of fairly basic hint or other information in a comment was enough for the OP to be able to answer their own question. From my still somewhat limited knowledge of this site, I believe this type of thing happens often enough that some way to address it, such as your idea of a check sign, which I think is an excellent idea, would be useful. $\endgroup$
    – John Omielan
    Feb 24, 2019 at 18:27
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    $\begingroup$ Related: Dealing with answers in comments., comments that answer the question, Question answered in comments. Basically, we don't want comments to be used as an answer. If the question won't be useful for future readers, then the alternative is to delete the question... $\endgroup$
    – Andrew T.
    Feb 24, 2019 at 18:35
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    $\begingroup$ "not wanting comments to be an answer" certainly is nice goal, but judging from the amount of posts on this website it doesn't seem very well enforced (or enforceable for that matter). I'm sure comments with "that's correct" can be useful to future readers, but won't a button to signal "addressed" help answerers and readers alike know which questions to read and learn from? $\endgroup$
    – D.R.
    Feb 24, 2019 at 19:45
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    $\begingroup$ See also: How to answer proof-verification questions? and other questions linked there. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 24, 2019 at 23:03
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    $\begingroup$ Re: I don’t quite understand the downvotes. As explained in the help center, voting is different on meta. "On posts tagged feature-request, voting indicates agreement or disagreement with the proposed change rather than just the quality or usefulness of the post itself." (Maybe you are aware of this, but I still left a comment just to make sure.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Feb 24, 2019 at 23:34
  • $\begingroup$ See also this. If answering a question does not add anything worthwhile to the site, then, may be, we should not answer it. Helping the asker see the light, in a comment, is then a friendly way to handle the situation. That question can then be deleted. May be it would have been better to have asked it in the main chatroom? $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Feb 25, 2019 at 6:12
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    $\begingroup$ Who's going to delete the addressed unanswered questions? Won't they just clutter up the site, edging out questions that actually haven't been addressed? $\endgroup$
    – D.R.
    Feb 25, 2019 at 6:27
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    $\begingroup$ The final question struck me as interesting enough to deserve an answer, hence it is no longer unanswered. The third currently has a negative score, and will therefore eventually be Roomba'd. More generally, if you don't like that these kinds of questions are "clutter[ing] up the site", feel free to vote-to-close, or request closure / deletion in CRUDE. You might also enjoy the Crusade of Answers. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Feb 26, 2019 at 4:56
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    $\begingroup$ @D.R. You've been given links to five other posts which address your concern to quite some extent. What, if anything, is missing from these discussions? Maybe it is possible to make the underlying question that you still seem to have (which your proposal attempts to address) a separate meta question which can discuss the problem and its solutions (instead of risking to conflate the issue and the proposed solution)? $\endgroup$
    – Lord_Farin
    Feb 26, 2019 at 20:41

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This would require a change in the Stack Exchange platform. The proposal has been considered before and rejected by the Stack Exchange team. The primary reason is that: we don't want people to answer in comments; that's considered an undesirable practice. And, we don't want to build in site features that encourage undesirable practices.

What should you do if you see a question that is answered in the comments? That, too, has been discussed before. In that case, I recommend doing one of two things:

  • Write your own answer, that answers the question. (Optionally, flag the comment as 'no longer needed' after that.)

  • Leave a comment encouraging the person who wrote the comment to write a full answer. Wait a day or two for them to see it, then if they haven't done anything about that period of time, write your own answer.

See, e.g., How should I handle questions which are answered in the comments? and Accepting a comment which automatically transforms into an answer, to save time and money? and Unanswered Question - Answered in comments.

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    $\begingroup$ In addition to the bullet points, a remark to that extent may be posted in the chatroom The Crusade of Answers for which this stream of questions is an important area of attention. $\endgroup$
    – Lord_Farin
    Feb 27, 2019 at 17:21

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