Other user answers question with answer that only convers a relativly small thing that I missed

Question

I answered a question, missing part of the implementation (because I don't know about the OP's system and am waiting for a reply to my question asking his system). Four hours later, another user creates his own answer that only adds an implementation detail but is phrased as if it is an entire answer.

See question at How do aliases or redirects work?.

I make a comment pointing out that the other answer is not answering the question, to which the other person responds The other steps to the process has been answered by other users. I'm adding a very important step to complete the process ...

However, if his answer was interpreted as an answer by the OP the OP would end up confused because if they implement the answer it won't come close to what they asked how to do. (They will end up redirected to a non-existent subdomain).

In this situation, I would add a comment to the original answer saying you missed <x> or if I was in a reputaion-obsessed mood possibly answer with

 You need to do everything <name-of-first-answerer> says, and then
 you need to do this and this

However, this other user has significantly more rep than me, so I think they may know something that I don't.

What is the proper action here for the other person? If the other person is in the wrong, what response should I give?

Answer 1

Good question, which I think boils down to: Should answers try to address everything the OP is asking?

As contained in our Help Center's docs on How do I write a good answer: Any answer that gets the asker going in the right direction is helpful, but do try to mention any limitations, assumptions or simplifications in your answer.

Reviewing the comments, it appears the other user intended on adding additional information not covered in other answers, which as you pointed out, doesn't make the answer complete on its own, but might be helpful to the OP nonetheless.

The comments should help to make it clear to the OP that's the case, however, often users in that situation will point out any simplifications by adding something like: "In addition to the other answers…" or "In addition to user X's answer…", which would help to make that even clearer for future readers, since comments are really only meant to be Temporary "Post-It" notes.

So in summary, it's fine to add additional helpful information as an answer if you feel the previous answers sufficiently cover what you would otherwise just end up repeating, but it's probably a good idea to editorialize that into your answer so that it's clear to others that's what you're doing.

So nobody is in the wrong here, and you did the right thing by bringing it up for discussion on our Meta site so everyone can learn from it. It's also fine to flag any post you have a question or concern about so that a moderator can have a look at it.