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Having both answers and comments seems redundant
under review
Mike Marsh
I hardly ever see comments used on questions, but having separate tabs for answers and comments really breaks up the interface for users, and I've had students complain about that being clunky. Either having both visible concurrently, or getting rid of comments on questions, would make a big difference. Almost all of the comments on questions end up being a way to get around the nesting limit for followups to answers, which is even worse, because it completely disrupts the conversational flow.
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Sonja Petrovic
My students routinely left comments instead of answers, and it left my answered questions marked as "unanswered". to me it was obvious, as an instructor, why we have both; but my students, over a couple of years, haven't figured it out. :-/
Duong Nguyen
under review
Duong Nguyen
As one of the TA mentioned below, it is useful for "unofficial" remarks so that it doesn't clutter up the interface. Maybe it would be useful to make the comments feature a class preference? So that you can choose to use comments or not.
Mike Marsh
Duong Nguyen: What about making both visible at the same time, so that students (and instructors) can see an answer and a comment that provides some context for the answer? It's currently essential to have comments as well, since the nesting is very limited in followups to answers (which is hopefully something that's going to be fixed).
kevin destin
If I can give an alternate perspective from a TA's perspective, the comment section is often a useful place to say something "unofficial" (ask for clarification, expand on an actual answer, etc...) without cluttering the main answer to the question.