
Ask HN: Anyone else not read the questions on SO, only the answers when stuck? - fanpuns
I don&#x27;t know if I could pinpoint exactly when this started for me, but I realized the other day that I never read the questions when I&#x27;m trying to debug something and SO pops up as part of my Google results. I just read the title, then scroll down to the answers to see if any of the proposed code will work for me. Maybe 1 in 50 I&#x27;ll flip back up to the question to see if a specific variable or setup is mentioned and therefore used in the answer.<p>I have been wondering with the discussion around SO culture and community if maybe this is important. For all the discussion about &quot;good&quot; questions and wanting to archive generally applicable programming advice, would it change the assumptions about the value of either if it turns out that people aren&#x27;t reading the questions anyway?
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dvdcxn
With experience you realise you're looking for an answer that matches your
question, as opposed to a question that matches your question.

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amirathi
Ditto. I almost never read the question. A well written answer restates the
question in some form.

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CosmicShadow
I usually open like 8 tabs of possibly relevant answers from a google result,
look for something that looks right, and if I get frustrated why something
doesn't make sense or seem to work, I scroll up and read the question to find
it was super specific or stupid and doesn't really match the title.

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farnsworthy
I think you pointed this out yourself: everybody is in fact reading the
questions, but in the SERPs, not on SO.

(And I'm sure people are scanning the body of the question there, too, if only
subconsciously--I know I do.)

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Noumenon72
I don't do this at all. More than half of the questions that seem relevant
from Google actually aren't my situation -- no point reading the answers.
Also, there are lots of good questions that list things I should have tried.

I also read the comments on the question and most of the answers to the
bottom, so I just read more than most people. I have the gold badge for voting
on 600 questions, which only 0.4% of users have. I'm just too curious for my
own good.

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amirathi
That's nice & all. But you are not being very efficient :)

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hackerfake
Indeed. I check out the question only if I understood the answer, but need to
verify if it solves my problem.

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muzani
Same. I noticed after a while that I stopped upvoting questions when there was
a prompt that reminded me.

Also noticed that my gold badge questions (the ones with really high views)
weren't getting a lot of upvotes too. Once a question is prominent enough on
Google, people just read the answer.

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O_H_E
I also noticed this in myself, but sometimes Google/the question title
misleads me to an answer for another situation. I find that this habit
sometimes waste my time

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xtiansimon
Read the question first or the answer. A programming problem is not a
narrative, it’s a structure. Totally non-linear, man!

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hodl
Why bother reading the question if the answers are lame. It the answers you
want after all. Bravo.

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potta_coffee
Yes I do this.

