A mod removed my answer (referencing the answer from comments) to my question saying it doesn't answer it

Question

I have a question about my Cross Validated post: Statistics: what kind of test to use to test this hypothesis?

A member commented on my question in detail, and that comment did answer my question.

I proposed he submit it as an answer so that I can mark it as such and close the topic while giving credit to him.

He said he didn't want to, so I submitted an answer where I said that the answer to my question is in that person's comment.

As I can't mark my own answer as the answer until 1 day passes, I went away to do other things only to come back to see that answer deleted by a mod saying "This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post." But I AM the author...

What do I do? Submit the same answer again? Flag the mod's comment which I feel would do nothing? Leave the question forever in the open state?

Answer 1

"See so-and-so's comment" doesn't meet the standard for an answer on our site. Answers should be complete in themselves; for example, if BruceET was to delete his comment, your answer would be useless.

It is usually seen as acceptable to

• invite the author of the comment to post as an answer, if you feel it is a complete answer to the question, or

• to simply post the information in the comment as an answer yourself, expanding on it where necessary to make it a suitable answer (comments are usually overly brief for answers), as long as you credit the source (and as long as the answer doesn't duplicate other answers on site)

You already tried the first. That was well done. The next step would be to try the second thing.

Edit: I don't see it as absolutely necessary to mark the answer as community wiki (per gung's answer) - some people do it to signal that they're not trying to gain reputation from someone else's information, which is a fine and admirable choice but I think there's no real problem with getting the reputation if you follow the ordinary standards of decent behavior (which I feel you already covered more than sufficiently by inviting the commenter to post an answer); if you happen to subsequently get an upvote or two by turning your question into a properly answered one, good luck to you.

Answer 2

I'm sorry for your frustration. The SE system works in a particular way that isn't necessarily obvious to new people. Your post was not an answer by our standards, and was thus deleted. The comment that was left below your post is a stock comment that can be automatically applied in situations like this.

You're right that we don't want your question to just linger, and also that the ideal solution is to have the commenter convert their comment into an answer. Given that the commenter chose not to, you could copy the comment into an answer, acknowledge the source and make the answer community wiki (cf, Etiquette for answering old questions addressed in comments?, although in this case the question is new). You could then mark the answer as the accepted one.