<p><strong>So what?</strong> My dear friends, are we perhaps worrying about a statistic without establishing that it has any particular meaning? One should be aware that we can often satisfy an OP with comments, and so the question becomes not if something has a formal answer that wouldn't really be an answer, but whether the OP got what was needed from the asking. So, one appropriate thing to look at may be total responses, because not every response, even the definitive ones, are &quot;answers.&quot; Now there are multiple reasons for commenting rather than sticking out one's neck with an answer that may be discussed to death, downvoted on for all the worst reasons, picked apart mercilessly despite the irrelevance to the OP of the endless discussion, when the whole idea was to give some preliminary guidance to the OP.</p>
<p>On a different site, someone actually answered my question in a comment, which was nice, I then requested that that very highly ranked person convert that into an answer so that I can accept  and upvote it. That person thanked me, did as requested and I did what I said I would. I found the thank-you to be most gratifying, that a high reputation person behaved in a genteel fashion made my day. Think about the mechanics of that for a moment and then perhaps consider which statistic actually means something. I think please and thank-you matters a lot. It sometimes is so difficult to get an answer out, and explain it, with such drawn out quibbles about various and sundry, and then have it deleted by people who just don't get where I am trying to go, and with emotions raging, no less, that the process is too often not wholesome. Perhaps we should give some thought to people trying to change answers to get the point across more frequently, like coauthors usually do, rather than competing for chits: &quot;Mine--all mine---my precious.&quot; If we could somehow encourage more of that we would all feel better about actually answering, I think.</p>
