Answering v.s. Commenting on Project Help Requests

i agree with you , i also have expierienced the same thing!

Many times, people comment because they don’t know if they have the right answer. If they answered with the wrong answer, someone with the right answer wouldn’t see the question.

Quinn Hardbrook Sometimes, yes, but I still see a lot of perfectly fine answers to simple questions being posted as comments instead of answers.

Quinn Hardbrook, 

Usually I comment than to answer, then I realised that when ever I comment, it does not clear from the list, then I stopped to comment, and yes I do agree, but sometimes I go through their comments, and find out that they have helped the person that has requested for their help,  and some do not understand the "Answer" tab, and some prefer commennting! so as Red Arrow ✝ said previouly they should add a reminder on the site, for people to remember to "Answer" help request than to "Comment" to make it fair! 

-Remember that there are old and far made help requests that needs attention as well to be fair.

~Thanks!

In those cases, someone can just come along and answer the question by saying, “Answered” or something along those lines.

Yeah, I guess that would work

I agree with you! It is also a bit tedious to find unanswered help requests you know the answer because you have to check the comments to see if there is a real, correct answer there or not. 

that is a great Idea, I totally agree!! If they can't Answer, but they comment, its best they say "Answered", if they can not, its best they add a reminder to the site!

I understand that looking through lots of help requests that look answered to you is annoying.  
On the other hand, it is frustrating to requesters when only one person sees their request and posts an Answer that is not at all what they needed.  I have been "yelled" at for that, which is why I only post as an Answer if I am sure I understand what will resolve the request.

Consider an example:

Suppose Yoshi can only use KA between 8 & 9 on weekdays (maybe he uses a computer lab at school), that he makes a help request at 8:50 a.m. Tuesday, and that Maria posts what she thinks resolves his request at 9:30 a.m.

Let's consider the difference in what happens when it is posted in "Answer" or in "Comments".

If she posts it as an Answer, and it resolves his request, great!  1 less unanswered request in the queue for about 24 hours.

If she posts it as an Answer and it doesn't help at all, Yoshi rewords it and posts it again at 8:30 a.m.  Wednesday. This time, Deion sees it, and again misinterprets what Yoshi was asking, and posts it as an Answer.  If Yoshi only has access to KA for an hour a day, how many days will it take him to get help?

On the other hand, if Maria posts it as a Comment, maybe at 11 a.m. Quang reads the request and interprets it differently from Maria. He adds a Comment that approaches it differently.  3 other people see the comments and figure it's handled, but at 6 p.m. Tamika adds a 3rd Comment that approaches it yet another way.
When Yoshi logs in at 8 a.m. Wednesday, he is able to see 3 responses, and it is much more likely that one of them understood what he needed, and he has the help he was looking for.
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I am not sure what the best way to handle this is.  I try to post as an Answer if I am confident I am solving the request, but as a Comment if I am not sure.

What might be ideal is for Khan Academy would rework the system so a Help Request could have one of 3 possible statuses: Unanswered (no answer posted), Answered (at least one  Answer posted), and Resolved (the requester accepts an answer or just reports that the request is resolved).  Then people wanting to help could view either just Unanswered requests or both Answered & Unanswered, but the Resolved requests would not be in the queue anymore.
(I don't know how likely it is that KA would decide to do this or be able to do it any time in the next decade, nor if anyone else thinks that would be a better system.)

I am open to more conversation & discussion.

Sincerely,
Janice

P.S.  If there are other posts on the same topic, maybe we could include links between them, to be able to see all the discussion together.

There have been a number of discussions about the best way to respond to Help Requests, specifically whether to post in Answer or in Comments.

Personally, I think it would be beneficial for there to be agreement on this issue (or at least fewer times when users are arguing about it).
I think it would help for Khan Academy to post clearer guidelines (or a link to them) somewhere obvious on the page with the Help Request queue.
If we build a consensus either about what guidelines would work well, or that posting official KA guidelines would be helpful (or both), that seems like a good idea.

Here is a list of unwritten rules suggested by Jim E (and shared with his permission):

The KA rules for flagging are to be followed when it comes to low quality, not helpful posts, spamming, etc.

If you have a clear and complete answer, and you are certain you can follow up any comments, it is ok to Answer
In other situations make a comment so that others can fill in, or make an Answer.

The requester should answer when the comments are good enough, stating that the issue was solved, and perhaps how.
If the requester doesn't answer, but responds in a comment that it was resolved, anybody else can answer with "Answered in comments" or such. Or the one that gave the answer, can copy it to be an answer.

If there hasn't been activity for over a week (in case it is a weekly lesson) and it seems there is a proper answer it can also be closed, asking the requester to open a new request if there is need.

If there doesn't seem to be a good answer, and there is no activity, you can decide. Ask the requester. Check the code if it seems to be fixed. Answer it with "Closing request, open new if needed"

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What do others think about these?
Do you have suggestions for improvement?