How should questions that seemed to have been answered through comments be handled? Here are two examples:

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How to handle escape characters in SQL Server 2008 R2

You could ask for them to close it, fair enough. But how about older questions like this: Trouble converting a stored unix time() stamp into a readable date time

Posting an answer to a question where the OP haven't been on line for a year isn't really an option either. Do you vote to close them? Flag them? Other measures?

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Vote to close as Too Localized (or flag if you don't have close rights). –  user7116 Feb 28 '12 at 14:27
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2 Answers

You can simply write your answer using what reported in the comment, and make it a Community Wiki; referring the user who wrote the comment is good practice too.

The reason of writing an answer is that an answer is more visible than a comment, especially when that comment is not the first given to that question, or it's not immediately understandable when that comment is correct. An answer can be up-voted, and if the OP is still around, accepted; that gives a clear signal to the future users of what is the solution for the question being asked. If the comment is the answer, but it needs to consider what reported in previous comments, I would write the answer basing also on those comments.

When doing so, I would consider if the answer is really useful; if the answer is something on the lines of "Yes, you can." then it is not much that useful, and probably the question is not useful too (or too localized).

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This is one of the few legitimate reasons to mark an answer as CW, IMO, to give the post the ability to be rated against the others through votes, while not actually getting reputation for something that isn't yours. –  casperOne Feb 28 '12 at 17:23
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If the question lies dormant for a while I would write an answer saying something like:

This was solved in the comments using x....

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Did you mean "I would write..."? –  Alenanno Feb 28 '12 at 14:34
@Alenanno hehe thanks ^_^ –  amanaP lanaC A nalP A naM A Feb 28 '12 at 14:36
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