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Possible Duplicate:
How about newlines within comments?
Comment formatting

I'm often find that the comment box doesn't do all of the things that I want it to do (like newlines for example).

In this question, for example, I found myself posting debug instructions, that just wouldn't format very well had I posted them as a comment.

Now, these debug instructions are not the answer, nor are they part of the answer, but they're for information gathering.

Content-wise they probably are better suited to be a comment, but had I posted it in a comment, it would be hard to read and might be more likely to be ignored.

I think it might be useful if you could post richer content in comments, especially newlines.

That way, you can write those kind of comments so that they can be more readable.

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  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/20584/comment-formatting – Bart Nov 29 '12 at 18:55
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    Embedded links? You can already post links in comments... what more do you need in that area? – animuson♦ Nov 29 '12 at 18:57
  • Oops, my bad. I guess you could use a 3rd party service like pastebin and link to that, since your content isn't part of the answer and is only an intermediate step in getting there. – user200500 Nov 29 '12 at 19:01
  • @animuson Last time I tried to post a link in a comment, [It didn't work the same way as it did in answers at the very least][1] [1]: www.google.com – Sam I am says Reinstate Monica Nov 29 '12 at 19:02
  • @SamIam: So use the alternate way of [description of link] in brackets and (the link) in parentheses. Why do you need to define the link at the end? – animuson♦ Nov 29 '12 at 19:03
  • Use [this format](www.example.com) to insert links into comments as explained here – Bart Nov 29 '12 at 19:03
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    Click the "help" link below the "Add Comment" button to see formatting rules. – BalusC Nov 29 '12 at 19:04
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    Oh, I disagree your request. If you would ever need to expand your comment over paragraphs, then the question is most likely just not a real question. Vote for close and don't bother. – BalusC Nov 29 '12 at 19:05
  • I saw one of the older questions, which is somewhat unique in the sense that the higher voted posts were pro-newlines. What Changed SO? You use to be so reasonable – Sam I am says Reinstate Monica Nov 29 '12 at 20:13
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    Site that support MathJax have a hack that installs vertical whitespace in comments, so we have some experience with this. It's ugly and distracting. Comments shouldn't stand out. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Nov 29 '12 at 20:25
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When you're writing a comment, you have to stop and consider the scope of what comments actually are. They are pretty temporal and only serve the purpose of gathering clarification of a question, pseudo-answering a question, and facilitating light conversation as evident in this very thread.

If you're going outside of this scope, think if it would be better as an answer or better taken to chat. Comments aren't meant to be as full-featured as questions. Your particular use case may fall better under a chat room.

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