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This is an answer to a question before it was put on hold. In its original edit, the poster claimed that jpeg images are unsuitable for steganography. It is true that the algorithm used by the asker is not compatible with jpeg, but there are other algorithms which are appropriately suited for jpeg.

I left a comment to point that out, in hope that he would correct his claim. But this turned into a back-and-forth argument about who was right. I was already uncomfortable with this by my 3rd comment and I hoped it'd be resolved soon so I could delete them all. I always assumed that one last comment would do it, because I didn't know the extend of his ignorance on the issue, or his stubborness to accept that fact. I even attempted to take this to a chat room, where we had only one exchange of posts.

Later on, I noticed that he edited his post, admitting that jpeg steganography was possible, but he stood by his knowledge that it was an unproductive and unrewarding approach. So, I posted what I thought would have been a final comment, providing him links and advice on how to learn what jpeg steganography is, again hoping he would correct his claim. This was also supposed to serve as a comment for future viewers to critically judge themselves the truthness of his claims.

He kept responding to me and soon enough I realised there was no hope I could get to him. He did ask for a piece of code for proof of my claims as I was about to do so myself. He said he'd check it out later and even though he's been active on this site ever since, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a number of reasons.

I don't care about him admitting to me he was wrong. Ideally, he'll just edit his answer and we'll both delete our comments. However, for a number of reasons he may fail to take action and I still think that wall of comments is inappropriate. To the best of my judgement, my best course of action is:

  • delete all of my comments,
  • post only one comment which summarises my case, along with links and examples for future viewers to decide themselves and
  • post one more comment explaining to the other person the above action and advising him on removing his comments (this comment will eventually be deleted).

Am I right in thinking so, or should I take a different action? I'm on the fence on whether I should downvote the answer. It makes a reasonable effort to address the question, but it also provides false claims. They are irrelevant to the question topic, but still, false information is false information.

A follow-up question would be, if this incident wasn't good for this site, how to prevent it from occuring again. Like I said, I never knew how deep it'd go and I only assumed one comment + one clarification comment would have resolved it. I only persisted because it was about an objectively false claim which could be easily addressed. Regardless of how relevant it was to the answer, or the asker's topic. I believe it's the community's duty to point them out and encourage their correction.

This may actually be resolved by him by the time this topic gets enough attention, so at the time of writing, this is his current edit.

Edit

Many people have brought up the excellent point of contributing with my own answer if I feel another one is lacking. It's something I'll consider in the future and it is a very good point to bring up indeed. However, in this case, the question was put on hold before it even came to my attention, so posting my own answer is an insufficient resolution unless the state of the matter changes.

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  • The easiest way to avoid a confrontation in the comments is not to have one at all. Downvote the answer if it's incorrect.
    – user3920237
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 17:04
  • Everyone knows the real way to avoid a confrontation in the comments is to not comment or vote at all ;)
    – BoltClock
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 17:05
  • The answer wasn't bad enough initially to deserve a downvote. It just had a tiny point which could have changed. Once the discussion escalated, I felt a downvote would seem confrontational and counterproductive. I also don't like to judge a post by the stubborness of its poster, but by its content. However, the content of the most recent edit has indeed put me on the fence.
    – Reti43
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 17:48

1 Answer 1

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  • delete all of my comments,
  • post only one comment which summarises my case, along with links and examples for future viewers to decide themselves and
  • post one more comment explaining to the other person the above action and advising him on removing his comments (this comment will eventually be deleted).

This is a fairly reasonable course of action. You can skip the third step if you want to.

You could also flag the earlier comments for mod attention as going off on a tangent; they could clean them up.

As for what you could have done differently, going into chat earlier would have helped some. So long as all of the comments are staying constructive (which appears to be the case in this instance), and are actually discussing some point relevant to the post, I certainly don't see it as being harmful. If the comments begin to devolve into personal insults, other types of unconstructive and argumentative statements, or simply begins to cycle without new points being added then you should stop participating (and probably flag for mod attention) as you are no longer adding any value.

If you feel strongly enough about the point it may also be appropriate to post your own answer that explains your own position, in place of the existing answer that you feel is lacking.

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