Comments to questions that try to answer the question, but do so wrongly?

Question

Let's say someone is asking a question along the lines "Is it OK to do X in country Y" and someone else puts a comment below the question, stating "No, it's not!", while it is actually OK to do X in country Y.

It's currently not possible to downvote a comment, nor is it possible to flag it as a "Wrong answer", only as non-constructive, which does not apply here in my opinion. I also think commenting on the comment does not really help since that would likely lead to discussions in the comments. Wrong answers get downvoted and receive dedicated comments to prove them wrong and thus often get deleted later by the author.

But the comments seem to be persistent since there is no direct implication of posting uninformed, wrong statements.

Is the only and best way to simply post a better answer? Should wrong comments be left there standing without replies? Should they be flagged as non-constructive?

Answer 1

Comments are not, and never have been, intended to provide an answer to a question. They weren't even part of the original SE design. In our SE overlords' view, comments are there to augment and clarify posts, not to provide complete answers. As such, they are very volatile and prone to unrecoverable deletion without notice. I have been pruning long comment threads, removing those that add no value to the post, the obsolete, and in some isolated instances unfortunately, the rude/offensive ones.

What you can do as an ordinary user is to comment on your own and state that such and such comment is incorrect for this and this reason. That's your best recourse, and hopefully the community would support it with upvotes to strengthen its position. You could also flag a comment that gives particularly dangerous advice, and mods might opt to remove it.

Personally, I try not to remove content, particularly answers, which is simply incorrect as opposed to Not An Answer/Offtopic/Spam. Sometimes pointing out what not to do is as useful as giving helpful advice, as long as a clear notice is given.