The normal way to ask for help is by posting a new entry (and in some cases, if you think your problem is or may be related to another, linking between their entry and yours). In some cases, it means you need to join the community (and wait for your membership request to be approved), which may cause frustrating delays, so it's tempting to ask by commenting on a possibly unrelated entry. However, that's usually a bad idea, because:
- Most community members won't see your request, esp. if the entry is more than a few days old.
- You're at the mercy of the entry poster, who may delete your comment without responding to it.
When I see someone asking for help in a comment (I get notifications for all comments in the community) I try to redirect them to posting an entry, but I can't always do that, since the entry poster will sometimes delete the comment before I can get to it. (On a sidenote, I would appreciate if entry posters could wait a bit before deleting the comment, or redirect the commenter to posting an entry yourself, if you really can't wait a few hours before deleting the comment.)
Pau Amma