I'm in an answer where there's quite a lot of commenting going on and we've reached a point where we're discussing topics quite different from the original question.
I'm just wondering if I should continue helping the person in the comments to get them to solve their original question, or informing them that they should ask a new question, as the answers that I'm giving them in the comments won't be helping anybody else who has the same questions.
Comments are not the place for extended discussion. It is not recommended to propagate an increasingly off-question comment trail.
It is within the power of moderators to move the whole comment trail to chat. That way the discussion can continue freely. If there have been 20 or so comments in a short time the system will automatically raise a flag to the site moderators. You may also raise a custom flag on the post and suggest that all the comments be moved to chat.
