Is there some sort of advanced search that will let you search for questions that have some number of comments but no answers?
Chuck's idea from this post made me wonder about an admin tool that can find questions that have been answered with a comment. Then presumably the admin can move the comment to an answer, write their own answer, or encourage the original commenter to post an answer.
Perhaps there is a developer back-end that allows scripts or bots to do this kind of thing?
Given that you need more reputation to comment than to answer, and the fact that an answer which is short enough to be a comment would need work to turn it into a great answer, I doubt this would be worthwhile.
In addition, anyone can take a comment, expand it with additional context and or information and make an answer out of it.
Remember that comments are meant to be ephemeral. Their main purpose is to help identify where questions and answers can be improved. They can be tidied up (deleted) at any time if their purpose has been served or they are no longer relevant.
