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I think you should not vote if you don't understand both the answer and what the OP is asking.

Answers must be both accurate and precise. There is a set of accurate answers that get large numbers of up votes, despite the fact that they are not precise. In other words the answer is correct in its technical details, but it doesn't answer the question.

This, I believe, happens because many people vote without careful consideration. Sometimes they vote without technical knowledge, but more often they skim the question and read to the first answer that is not a syntax error, and upvote it.

Responsible upvoting means reading and understanding the question and the answer.

This answer prompted me to write the above. The answer is correct, but doesn't really answer the question. The question isn't phrased in the clearest manner, but it can be understood. The only reason that answer got so many upvotes was that people weren't upvoting responsibly. People were just acknowledging that range() can be a useful function in PHP.

To be honest, I upvoted that answer too. It took a comment from the OP for me to realize that they probably was looking for something else (Fair warning, that's my answer, but I think it's a legitimate illustration of this phenomenon)

So, it's really easy to upvote irresponsibly. You see a pretty answer, and you upvote it. It takes much more time to understand not just the technical details, but the context of the question. Especially since answers are often written in a clearer style than questions. There are definitely many beautiful questions on this site, but there are also many badly composed questions.

Finally, it can be said that accurate answers which are precisely NOT what the OP was asking for are still useful to someone, so they deserve an upvote, but I think the site would be much more useful and amenable to search if people, myself included, just slowed down and gave slightly more careful consideration to the upvote.

I think you should not vote if you don't understand both the answer and what the OP is asking.

Answers must be both accurate and precise. There is a set of accurate answers that get large numbers of up votes, despite the fact that they are not precise. In other words the answer is correct in its technical details, but it doesn't answer the question.

This, I believe, happens because many people vote without careful consideration. Sometimes they vote without technical knowledge, but more often they skim the question and read to the first answer that is not a syntax error, and upvote it.

Responsible upvoting means reading and understanding the question and the answer.

This answer prompted me to write the above. The answer is correct, but doesn't really answer the question. The question isn't phrased in the clearest manner, but it can be understood. The only reason that answer got so many upvotes was that people weren't upvoting responsibly. People were just acknowledging that range() can be a useful function in PHP.

To be honest, I upvoted that answer too. It took a comment from the OP for me to realize that they probably was looking for something else (Fair warning, that's my answer, but I think it's a legitimate illustration of this phenomenon)

So, it's really easy to upvote irresponsibly. You see a pretty answer, and you upvote it. It takes much more time to understand not just the technical details, but the context of the question. Especially since answers are often written in a clearer style than questions. There are definitely many beautiful questions on this site, but there are also many badly composed questions.

Finally, it can be said that accurate answers which are precisely NOT what the OP was asking for are still useful to someone, so they deserve an upvote, but I think the site would be much more useful and amenable to search if people, myself included, just slowed down and gave slightly more careful consideration to the upvote.

I think you should not vote if you don't understand both the answer and what the OP is asking.

Answers must be both accurate and precise. There are many accurate answers that get large numbers of up votes, despite the fact that they are not precise. In other words the answer is correct in its technical details, but it doesn't answer the question.

This, I believe, happens because many people vote without careful consideration. Sometimes they vote without technical knowledge, but more often they skim the question and read to the first answer that is not a syntax error, and upvote it.

Responsible upvoting means reading and understanding the question and the answer.

This answer prompted me to write the above. The answer is correct, but doesn't really answer the question. The question isn't phrased in the clearest manner, but it can be understood. The only reason that answer got so many upvotes was that people weren't upvoting responsibly. People were just acknowledging that range() can be a useful function in PHP.

To be honest, I upvoted that answer too. It took a comment from the OP for me to realize that he probably was looking for something else (Fair warning, that's my answer, but I think it's a legitimate illustration of this phenomenon)

So, it's really easy to upvote irresponsibly. You see a pretty answer, and you upvote it. It takes much more time to understand not just the technical details, but the context of the question. Especially since answers are often written in a clearer style than questions. There are definitely many beautiful questions on this site, but there are also many badly composed questions.

Finally, it can be said that accurate answers which are precisely NOT what the OP was asking for are still useful to someone, so they deserve an upvote, but I think the site would be much more useful and amenable to search if people, myself included, just slowed down and gave slightly more careful consideration to the upvote.

I think you should not vote if you don't understand both the answer and what the OP is asking.

Answers must be both accurate and precise. There is a set of accurate answers that get large numbers of up votes, despite the fact that they are not precise. In other words the answer is correct in its technical details, but it doesn't answer the question.

This, I believe, happens because many people vote without careful consideration. Sometimes they vote without technical knowledge, but more often they skim the question and read to the first answer that is not a syntax error, and upvote it.

Responsible upvoting means reading and understanding the question and the answer.

This answer prompted me to write the above. The answer is correct, but doesn't really answer the question. The question isn't phrased in the clearest manner, but it can be understood. The only reason that answer got so many upvotes was that people weren't upvoting responsibly. People were just acknowledging that range() can be a useful function in PHP.

To be honest, I upvoted that answer too. It took a comment from the OP for me to realize that they probably was looking for something else (Fair warning, that's my answer, but I think it's a legitimate illustration of this phenomenon)

So, it's really easy to upvote irresponsibly. You see a pretty answer, and you upvote it. It takes much more time to understand not just the technical details, but the context of the question. Especially since answers are often written in a clearer style than questions. There are definitely many beautiful questions on this site, but there are also many badly composed questions.

Finally, it can be said that accurate answers which are precisely NOT what the OP was asking for are still useful to someone, so they deserve an upvote, but I think the site would be much more useful and amenable to search if people, myself included, just slowed down and gave slightly more careful consideration to the upvote.

I think you should not vote if you don't understand both the answer and what the OP is asking.

Answers must be both accurate and precise. There are many accurate answers that get large numbers of up votes, despite the fact that they are not precise. In other words the answer is correct in its technical details, but it doesn't answer the question.

This, I believe, happens because many people vote without careful consideration. Sometimes they vote without technical knowledge, but more often they skim the question and read to the first answer that is not a syntax error, and upvote it.

Responsible upvoting means reading and understanding the question and the answer.

This answer prompted me to write the above. The answer is correct, but doesn't really answer the question. The question isn't phrased in the clearest manner, but it can be understood. The only reason that answer got so many upvotes was that people weren't upvoting responsibly. People were just acknowledging that range() can be a useful function in PHP.

To be honest, I upvoted that answer too. It took a comment from the OP for me to realize that he probably was looking for something else (Fair warning, that's my answer, but I think it's a legitimate illustration of this phenomenon)

So, it's really easy to upvote irresponsibly. You see a pretty answer, and you upvote it. It takes much more time to understand not just the technical details, but the context of the question. Especially since answers are often written in a clearer style than questions. There are definitely many beautiful questions on this site, but there are also many badly composed questions.

Finally, it can be said that accurate answers which are precisely NOT what the OP was asking for are still useful to someone, so they deserve and upvote, but I think the site would be much more useful and amenable to search if people, myself included, just slowed down and gave careful consideration to the effortless upvote.

I think you should not vote if you don't understand both the answer and what the OP is asking.

Answers must be both accurate and precise. There are many accurate answers that get large numbers of up votes, despite the fact that they are not precise. In other words the answer is correct in its technical details, but it doesn't answer the question.

This, I believe, happens because many people vote without careful consideration. Sometimes they vote without technical knowledge, but more often they skim the question and read to the first answer that is not a syntax error, and upvote it.

Responsible upvoting means reading and understanding the question and the answer.

This answer prompted me to write the above. The answer is correct, but doesn't really answer the question. The question isn't phrased in the clearest manner, but it can be understood. The only reason that answer got so many upvotes was that people weren't upvoting responsibly. People were just acknowledging that range() can be a useful function in PHP.

To be honest, I upvoted that answer too. It took a comment from the OP for me to realize that he probably was looking for something else (Fair warning, that's my answer, but I think it's a legitimate illustration of this phenomenon)

So, it's really easy to upvote irresponsibly. You see a pretty answer, and you upvote it. It takes much more time to understand not just the technical details, but the context of the question. Especially since answers are often written in a clearer style than questions. There are definitely many beautiful questions on this site, but there are also many badly composed questions.

Finally, it can be said that accurate answers which are precisely NOT what the OP was asking for are still useful to someone, so they deserve an upvote, but I think the site would be much more useful and amenable to search if people, myself included, just slowed down and gave slightly more careful consideration to the upvote.