Why was this OP's self-answer converted to a comment?

Question

This post: OrangePi Zero 3 once you have installed and booted a OS from micro SD card you can't eventually boot any different OS

OP found out that their issue stemmed from the hardware publisher site not clearly or accurately indicating which OS images were compatible with their specific hardware, noted this, and listed the OS images they found that WERE compatible, as well as tips regarding the specific issues they had with some.

Yes, the answer was brief, but it seemed, to me, to contain a clear and likely correct answer to their problem.

This answer was deleted by a mod and converted to a comment, and I'm just wondering what the logic behind that decision is, if there's some analysis I missed that explains why it is better as a comment than an answer.

Answer 1

I've seen this happen several times in the past. I suspect that there isn't any particular reason regarding this specific comment – rather, it seems that often users (including even long-time mods, and occasionally myself as well) forget that comments are meant to be for asking for clarification and instead use them as a "mini-answer" form¹, and that sometimes extends to converting terse, one-paragraph answers to comments instead of prompting the author to expand on their (self-)answer.

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¹ (Conveniently, a comment "answer" cannot be downvoted even if it's blatantly wrong.)