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Chen Lin

New feature in MATLAB Answers: Moving comments to and from answers

Chen Lin on 15 Aug 2022
Latest activity Reply by DGM on 30 Oct 2022

In MATLAB Answers, oftentimes we see good comments that provide solutions in a question thread. Those comments should really be answers. On the other hand, there are some answers that do not offer solutions. Those answers should actually be comments. The answer/comment issue makes it harder for readers of a question thread to quickly identify useful information. To tackle this issue, the community team just released the MOVE feature!
What can be moved?
Answers and comments can now be moved in 4 ways within the same question thread:
  1. Change an answer to a comment
  2. Change an answer with comments to a group of comments
  3. Change a comment to an answer
  4. Move a comment
Who can move answers and comments?
New privileges have been awarded to contributors with 2000 reputation points or more. Privileged contributors will see move icons added in the list of actions available for answers and comments.
After an answer or comment is moved, an indication of the move will be displayed with the content.
As always, please let us know your thoughts by leaving a reply below.

5 Comments

DGM
DGM on 30 Oct 2022
One additional improvement would be the ability to move flags as well. There are always lots of instances of comments-as-flags.
dpb
dpb on 18 Aug 2022 (Edited on 18 Aug 2022)
I see no such added icon -- just added a comment to a thread and decided it would make a good answer so thought I'd try out the new feature. Does this just show for others with sufficient prifvilegees than the original poster, not to OP?
Well, that's not quite the whole story -- I opened an Accepted Answer of my own to correct a typo I noticed and there the Move icon is there--but, of course, it's disabled since was accepted. But still, I see nothing to help moving a comment to an answer anyway I can figure to look...
Rena Berman
Rena Berman on 18 Aug 2022 (Edited on 18 Aug 2022)
(Answers dev) @dpb which comment do you want to move? The following cannot be moved:
  • Accepted answers – these can be moved if the answer is unaccepted
  • Answers or comments in closed question threads – these can be moved if the thread is reopened
  • Spam or children of spam – these can be moved if they, or their parents, are marked as non-spam
Also, if you happen to be moving comments in question threads authored by the @MathWorks Support Team, those no longer allow question comments. So you would also not be able to move comments to the question on those threads.
dpb
dpb on 19 Aug 2022 (Edited on 19 Aug 2022)
My bad! I didn't recognize it without the word; the default page size of the browser window just has the icon itself and I didn't recognize it as being new/different...so, "pilot error", sorry.
DGM
DGM on 17 Aug 2022 (Edited on 17 Aug 2022)
Personally, I'd rather the Move icon be positioned somewhere to the left of the more frequently-used Edit icon, but I don't know that other higher-ranked users edit their own comments as frequently as I do. Considering the position of the Delete icon, I'm not sure that I have a leg to stand on.
Either way, this is a long-needed bit of functionality, and I'm sure it will simplify a lot of cleanup. Thanks!

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