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The current implementation of Stack Exchange allows us to comment on a particular question without even having enough reputation.

This can be done by exploiting the autocomment feature of Stack Exchange and then editing the comment as required.

Example: How do I convert a string to a string literal in python? (I posted and edited this comment when my reputation was below 50)

I think this is a very serious problem as one can abuse any question by creating new accounts with a script and commenting as much as he want.

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  • @Glorfindel If you try to post an answer that is barely more than a link to another post on the site, it gets auto-converted to a comment. Users without commenting privileges are plain not allowed to flag as duplicates (or they're not supposed to be able to) because they don't have the commenting privilege. It didn't get expanded to cover this case, though.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Jul 5, 2016 at 20:26
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    Strongly related: "Trivial answer converted to comment" should not bypass the 50-rep restriction (but this question brings up the additional issue of being able to subsequently edit the comment)
    – Tim Stone
    Jul 5, 2016 at 22:39

2 Answers 2

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Agreed, users with less than 50 reputation should not be able to edit their comments, no matter how those comments were posted.

Another option is not allowing ordinary users to edit the auto-converted answers, even with high reputation. This will work too, and if needed the user can just delete and post new comment, or a new answer that won't get converted.

Would be happy to see either of those implemented.

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We patched this up in October of 2016. Since then, users without the "Comment Everywhere" privilege are no longer able to edit comments outside of their own questions and answers, even if the system does generate comments elsewhere on their behalf.

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