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I recently answered a question in biology.stackexchange.com here.

In that one of the answerer seems to keep commenting on why my answer is wrong. Initially I tried to explain why my answer is correct. After a while I gave up.

What is the correct etiquette on dealing with a situation like this?

Should I report? Should I ignore? Should I keep posting more comments explaining why I am correct?

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    Have you considered the possibility that you are wrong?
    – Oded
    Jan 9, 2015 at 10:48
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    Yes, but neither I nor others seem to understand what the other person is trying to get at
    – One Face
    Jan 9, 2015 at 11:19
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    I tend to ask for clarifications in such scenarios and will not immediately answer (and if I will - I will add caveats as to my understanding of the question).
    – Oded
    Jan 9, 2015 at 11:25
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    related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/224719/… and meta.stackexchange.com/questions/225303/…
    – Kate Gregory
    Jan 9, 2015 at 12:12
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    You tell them that they are wrong and you tire of this argument, then close with "good day, sir." When he comments again, respond with a healthy "I SAID GOOD DAY!"
    – user1228
    Jan 9, 2015 at 18:28

3 Answers 3

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If you are certain your answer is correct, and the discussion is going in circles (or you've run out of constructive replies), then your only sane option is to ignore the commenter and move on.

At the end of the day, it's the wider community that will decide if your answer is correct or not. In the specific case, your answer has a positive score, which is (another) strong sign you shouldn't be wasting too much of your time arguing about this.

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I agree with the other answers, but this needs some response:

Should I report?

I'm assuming you are talking about raising flags, since this is the immediate way way have to "report" problems. If the dispute turns nasty you should certainly flag the comments that are rude or offensive.

However... you should not flag because you want a moderator to step in to decide who is right. Two reasons. First, it does not scale. Moderators are not experts in all areas of the site they moderate. Also, if they started doing this, they'd soon be doing only this, because determining correctness is not always quick and because a lot of people would pester moderators to step in. Second, if moderators stepped in to resolve issues of technical correctness, then what is the point of having a voting system?

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    That makes perfect sense. Thanks for the good answer.
    – One Face
    Jan 9, 2015 at 12:15
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If someone uses a comment to say your answer was wrong (which is one of the purposes of comments, after all) then the best course of action is to:

  1. Update your answer to provide evidence as to why you believe it is correct.
  2. (Optional) Respond to the commenter stating @{user} I have updated my answer.

if it is still deemed wrong then leave it up to the community to vote on your answer. That is the purpose of voting after all - so that people can review and support / dispute your answer. More upvotes than downvotes should indicate the community agree with you (although this isn't a foolproof method).

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