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As a first-time mod in an SE site, I was confused by the extra text "The Question" that shows up after the question ID in the text field of the dialog to convert an answer into a comment:

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Various aspects of this UI were confusing to me:

  • The label of the field suggests that its contents should be only the ID, or the URL of the question.
  • The capitalization of the text, as "The Question", makes it seem like a title, rather than a descriptive label, and led me to think whether I had the right question in the box. For example, something like "12345 (the question)" would be less confusing to me.
  • The fact that the text was editable made me unsure about whether I was supposed to change it, and what would happen if did. Would it edit the title of the question? Would it be completely ignored as long as the ID matched a question in the site? What if I had two valid question IDs in the box?

Since the text above the box already explains what is supposed to go in it, I'd find it much more reassuring if the descriptive label was not added at all. Perhaps the full URL or title of the question could be added under the box (not inside it!), just to add an extra assurance that we've got the right ID.

For the record, I looked into existing questions (e.g. this one and this one), but they seem to be dealing with different UX issues of that dialog.

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    For what it's worth, I have always found that clear (and would find the lack of any descriptive label confusing). Maybe because I read that as a dash—often used to insert a parenthetical statement—albeit one using an en-dash instead of an em-dash but that's my hangup ;). Using (the question) sounds like a decent compromise though.
    – terdon
    Commented Aug 9, 2021 at 19:13
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    The "- The Question" text is actually editable text, rather than placeholder text? That... is really weird.
    – zcoop98
    Commented Aug 9, 2021 at 20:52

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It would be so much nicer if the text box was a dropdown listing the question, and all the answers including answer-score and author name.

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