Recently I saw a question posted by jhabley-ga which I could provide a
quick answer to. No one had done so so far, and the question had
expired. When I tried to add a comment, there was no "Add a comment"
button for me to use. Is it possible for your unpaid commenters to add
comments to unanswered, uncommented questions? I've spent about 15
minutes looking and searching thru the FAQs and can't find the answer
to this myself.

I'd be happy to receive one of the following answers:
(1) "No, it's not possible."
(2) "Yes, it's possible; go to http://urlxxx to find out how."
(3) "Yes, but it's complicated, so you'd probably have to raise your
price to get a detailed answer."

It was easy, however, to answer jhabley-ga's question, which was "I
have OS 10.3. How do I access the Unix that, apparently, is on here?"
I just went to Google and entered a search for
           mac "OS X" Unix tutorial
-- and an "I'm feeling lucky" click takes you to a pretty good answer.

Hi Jim...

Speaking as an experienced researcher, the answer to your
question is no - neither researchers or unpaid commenters
can add comments to unanswered, uncommented questions.
If a question is expired prior to being answered, comments
cannot be added to any question.

In this particular instance, the question was expired only
ten minutes after it was posted:
Posted: 05 Feb 2004 07:35 PST
Expires: 05 Feb 2004 07:45 PST

It seems likely that the jhabley-ga found the answer on 
his own and subsequently cancelled the question. The fact
that the question *was* relatively easy to answer makes it
all the more likely that jhabley-ga succeeded in locating
it without our assistance. 

This is the purpose of providing the ability to cancel the
question, and it makes sense, to me, that the ability to 
add comments to a question to which an answer is no longer
needed, would be removed when the question is cancelled.

In another example - question #74294, you can see that
Requests for Clarification, Clarifications, and Comments
were made on the question before it was cancelled after
thirteen days. Additional comments cannot be added to 
this one, either, subsequent to its cancellation.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=74294

A question which has been answered, however, can have 
comments added at any time.

You may also be interested in the GA User's Guide, created
by researcher skermit-ga, which can be found here:
http://www.christopherwu.net/google_answers/answer_guide.html

I think that covers all the bases.

Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
the answer cannot be improved upon by way of a dialog
established through the "Request for Clarification" process.

sublime1-ga

Exactly what I was looking for in an answer. Thanks! I know I could
probably have answered it myself by bouncing around the FAQ pages
longer, but I got my answer just a few minutes after I posted the
question.

Hi jimwww,

Just a little suggestion. You can search for any GA participant by
their i.d. in the GA search field (in this case, jhabley-ga), and add
a comment to any of their open or answered questions - just be sure to
refer to the relevant question's number and subject.  hummer