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As far as I know (or knew!), someone with a reputation of 1 cannot comment on someone else's question/answer. But how about this? Take a look at the comment by kobby fiagbe on the answer given by Getty. I looked the profile of kobby fiagbe but didn't find clue as to this event. How was that possible?

Screenshot

screenshot

I hovered over the name of kobby fiagbe and it shows the rep (used snipping tool which hides the pointer)

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  • Comments are different from answers. What I've written is a comment. What Kobby wrote was an answer. Anyone can answer a question regardless of reputation.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Mar 21, 2015 at 17:42
  • please take a look again, kobby's one was also a comment
    – Sнаđошƒаӽ
    Commented Mar 21, 2015 at 17:45
  • added a screenshot
    – Sнаđошƒаӽ
    Commented Mar 21, 2015 at 18:00
  • @StoneyB if that's the case, you can just write that as an answer!
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 9:52

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The comment in question was originally posted as an Answer and converted to a comment by a moderator—doubtless because somebody flagged it as "not an Answer".

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  • Well, that is confusing, to see someone with a rep of 1 commenting. As I see it, that comment (originally an answer) does not add anything new to that that can be found from answers given already. So moderators could have simply deleted the answer altogether, instead of converting to a comment. Anyway, thanks for the answer
    – Sнаđошƒаӽ
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 12:29
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    @Suhail The mods could have deleted it; but such comments do not usually get deleted unless they are obnoxious or irrelevant. We generally accept both concurring and dissenting opinions as relevant. And it would be decidedly unfriendly to delete a new user's post merely because it was in the wrong place.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Mar 24, 2015 at 23:20
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There are a few reasons why you could find a comment by a user with a rep of 1:

  1. As StoneyB said, the user might have left it as an answer, and it might have been flagged. When this happens, a mod has several options: dismiss the flag and let the answer stand, delete the answer, edit the answer, leave a comment asking the O.P. to elaborate on the answer, or convert the answer to a comment. If the answer is a relevant and insightful comment, it might be converted.

  2. The user may have earned enough rep to leave a comment, and then received enough downvotes that the user's reputation went back down to 1. (This seems unlikely, considering you need a rep of 50 to leave a comment – but it's at least possible in theory.)

  3. The user could be serving a suspension in the penalty box, in which case that user's rep is temporarily set to 1.

As for what you said in your comment to StoneyB:

That comment (originally an answer) does not add anything new to that that can be found from answers given already. So moderators could have simply deleted the answer altogether, instead of converting to a comment.

I agree, it could have gone either way. When making a decision on a borderline case, a few different options come into play. For example, which would seem more welcoming to a new user? Deletion, or conversion?

In this case, the answer already has two downvotes, plus a few comments that seem to go against it. So, perhaps the moderator thought it would be civil to let a dissenting opinion (that is, one that supports the O.P.) be added to the discussion.

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