May I speculate in comments?

Question

The question What does "make the Iacke go" mean? has received four answers, all of which propose theories as to what the phrase means. Under it are also some comments that, to me, raise an interesting question:

@All Please don't speculate in comments. Write an answer. – Andrew Leach ♦

@AndrewLeach Would you please desist from this monomaniacal insistence on writing answers even when there is no certain answer to be had? – TimR

Even speculation should go into the answer box. A partial answer is an answer, not a comment. Comments are for soliciting further information, as you yourself demonstrate with the existing answer. – Andrew Leach ♦

@AndrewLeach Who says comments must have that exclusive function? I see questions from the past where you yourself are making suggestions in comments. If comments used to be used more broadly, when did their purpose get narrowed down? – TimR

The comments that disagreed with the moderation (I assume some of the more conjectural comments were deleted) received many upvotes, a fact that leads me to ask: is speculation allowed in comments?

I think Tinfoil Hat's comment sums up the issue: "Since this is slightly wild speculation on my part, I’ll risk a comment delete over downvotes on a half-baked answer."

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Guidance/Consensus at Answers in comments says:

Partial answers may appear in comments and may be used by anyone who wishes to post a complete answer, with the understanding that mods may still delete the comments at a whim, without notice.

Obviously, that is somewhat related, but I'm not entirely sure if a 'partial answer' is the same as a speculative one, and whether deleting it is truly useful.

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Edit: Many of those comments have now been deleted (not to silence discussion, I assume, but because they've been recorded here) and the question is also locked.

Answer 1

I for one (as one of those who provided "an" answer) feel almost anxious about going on participating. Especially because of the "scratching the ridiculous"-level of logical fallacies in the way the system is set up.

I am not able (yet) to leave comments as a new contributor, yet I haven't hesitated to write an answer, based on what I know. But not because it was encouraged, on the contrary - what triggered me to do it in the end, was exactly that notion that even speculation shall be written as an answer.

So I wrote.

And I tried to be careful to present my "answer" as neither "just a thought", nor "as is correct". I reduced it mainly to what I know and tried to position it by that in a neutral stance.

Still, in the comments I was asked what I do think of the use of "Iacke"/"Jacke" in the context of the first-portfolio - to which I responded that I would not dare to give a full analysis/review without having the source right before me.

This was interpreted as a lack of effort and I got a biting comment that I do indeed have the full source before me I just need to follow the link.

And that is the point where I am almost "emotionally done for" regarding my further personal engagement. (If you do not understand why that is, leave it be and under no circumstance comment on that.) Because:

1. The full source is NOT present, it is an excerpt that is linked.

2. That full source was only accessible to me after utilizing a VPN.

3. What I was then able to discover on that site is that it is just a mashed-up collection without any relevant side notes, meaning: it does not contain contextual markings as I noted before in my follow-up comment would be a requirement to be able to give a full review. What the site contains is heavily transformed and mangled by stone-age-OCR without human revision, no hypertext/contextual references, let alone high-resolution photographs at the least. This is the equivalent of how "research" in this area was done for centuries BEFORE networking, hypertext, and computer-assisted-workflows were established - which btw. happened in the 1950s ...

Both points show a lack of effort on the side of the commenter. Because it implies that accessibility is a given and that the aforementioned necessities are met. This is not the case. It is extremely discouraging as it falls in line with the usual "you are not able to google"-comments, which are only spouted by people who never even dare to try to come up with the same results on another person's system - or in another country - only to realize that "search-engines", as well as ANY dynamic website is subject to change at the time of loading and is most likely fully customized to the person searching (or in the Google Search case: The system simply does not offer a non-customized search).

Not to mention the legal barriers, e.g. Gutenberg Project - not fully accessible in Germany.

Personally, I at least got a great example of a revision for my answer, from which I learned a lot.

So why all the fuzz, here?

In the end, if a speculation should be an answer or a comment is a nonsensical discussion, as long as almost everyone participating is more focused on their personal experiences/perspective on that matter than what the system actually allows in the first place and what might be a beneficial compromise.

It does not allow commenting as a new contributor, ergo: the whole discussion is irrelevant. The only way to treat it still as relevant is implying that a community split into those that already have the reputation shall have all rights, whereas new contributors shall have all duties, while at the same time not being able to make notions/comments, participate in the general exchange on-topic.

So the only thing you CAN discuss here - and NO I am not SHOUTING, it's called EMPHASIS - is:

Do you (the ALREADY ESTABLISHED) want to let new contributors be able to participate

.. OR (and this is an exclusive or):

Do you want to keep the status quo to ensure your position?

In the end, this all boils down to a hefty portion of necessary self-reflection, having an intellectual stroll into the not-so-green pastures one is used to, and the resulting awareness of the surroundings of anyone participating.

If you - the people who decide how the system works or how its rules are interpreted and applied - are not ready to fulfill these inherently natural requirements in the first place, there will never be an answer to this discussion, as it simply CAN NOT have an answer.

You may treat this as a rant or for what it is (without fantasizing about the in-between-the-lines, as there is no such thing):

An honest contribution to this discussion is rooted in my awareness and my personal experiences accompanied by an attempt to provoke self-reflection in all participants (including myself).

How does that look from your perspective?

Answer 2

We are a shoot-askers-down community with a crew of hawkish eagle-eyed downvoters ready to slay and humiliate new users with the temerity to ask a question that they haven't the vocabulary to ask differently or the knowledge to research any better. The weapon of choice with which to club these big-eyed baby-seal questions is: "show more research". I massively overstate the case, of course, but a bit of massive overstatement has never done anyone any harm ever at all. (Never ever)

There is an important point. NVZ (in his post here) and Andrew L (in comments) have started asking users to post unsubstantiated speculations as authoritative answers. Because—so the reasoning goes—speculations are answers, they should go in the answer box where answers belong and where people can upvote them and downvote them.

But answers, too, have minimum standards, which also need to be upheld, just like questions. Answers should be based on evidence or on authoritative sources. This is a site for linguists etymologists and serious English language enthusiasts. People coming here have a right to expect not only that answer posts have some basis in evidence or in secondary research, but that they aren't mere speculation masquerading as knowledgable or reliable information!

Answer boxes are strictly for answers. Real ones.

The spread of misinformation is antithetical to the aims of the SE network. Let us not encourage users to convert interesting speculative comments into answers where they should be as welcome as a bad case of gout or an outbreak of dysentery. We have standards to uphold.

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PS: NVZ and AL, respect to your dedication here as mods, which I appreciate greatly. You're both diamonds.

Answer 3

mods may still delete the comments at a whim, without notice.

pretty much says it.

Note that the lock now on the question only applies to comments:

Comments on this question have been disabled, but it is still accepting new answers and other interactions.

Anyone is free to post an answer.

For more on the reasons why site moderators prefer for answers to be posted as answer posts rather than as comments, see

Is SE enforcing "no answers in comments"?

Answer 4

Since SE as a Q&A site's very existence depends on our holding ourselves to some higher standard than a free-for-all-to-speculate-in-comments like Reddit or Yahoo, it becomes our responsibilty to enforce these SE rules, and prior to being entrusted to carry the diamond, we'd have held differing views and posted answers or speculations all over the place at some point, which is likely still around.

I would recommend that it be in the answer box, and not to worry too much about the feedback it gets, be it DVs, or disagreements. This is why we must; as the comments by design cannot receive DVs.

In other words, any attempt to 'answer' the question, should go in the answer-box; be it authoritative with substantiation, partial with the relevant substantiation, and to the other extreme, mere speculation. All these should be 'vetted' by the community with their votes, flags, or other feedback in comments. Abuse of the comment-box to escape this vetting under the banner of 'speculation' would be treated the same way as answering in comments.

This by no means is 'encouraging' or welcoming speculations. We still expect authoritative answers that can withstand the scrutiny.