If it is up to 4 pages, I read the answers. I just cannot go through over that unless the question is so good that the answers are also that good. There are some questions with answers that are that good but not many. I never make it past 10 pages of answers though. I also rarely answer those long ones because I know my answer is not going to be seen.

I do try to check them all if I have a real interest. A good recent measure here in AB has been that the date an answer is submitted is the "preset" mode when checking answers now. It gives more opportunity to everybody to have their answer read. There are times when extremely popular questions get even hundreds of answers, it's very hard to read ALL of those.

I do not read other peoples answers until after I have posted my own. I feel that by reading all the others first this may affect what I have to say and my response is more likely to be swayed by the opinion of others, When I have posted I will then read answers, now that the order method has been changed there is much more chance of later answers being read and rated.

I generally read some, but not all, depending on how interesting the subject is, and how many answers there are.

1) Usually, you can forget about answer 321! Questions which get so many answers are conversational questions. I sometimes read those answers if the question is interesting and if I wish to learn something about the answerers. And of course, if I find something very interesting, I would rate it. There were 5 questions last week which received more than 53 answers in that week: "1 - Our awesome Nunya is having a birthday today (4/23). She's 100 years old (just kidding Nunya-you know I love you). She is a wonderful ABer and good friend. Would anyone like to congratulate her on her special day? 103 103 2 - AB's very inquisitive and friendly NUNYA has reached SWAMI!!!!!!!!!! Please, would you stop by and congratulate her on this amazing accomplishment? 93 93 3 - How old were your mom and dad when you were born? 76 76 4 - What's an old TV show you remember that most other people wouldn't know? 68 68 5 - Anyone besides me support Miss California's answer that marriage should be between and man and a woman? 63 63" Source and further information: http://www.answerbag.com/stats?board=5 The first two are congratulation questions for Nunya. I did not answer those questions because I congratulated her in a comment. I don't read those answers usually, except if I am asking the question or being congratulated. The others are collecting facts or opinions. I am not so interested in this either. I could eventually read some of those answers if I wanted to know a particular answerer better. Of course, it would also be different if I had asked the question. Then I would read and rate all of them. There could be cases where a very interesting answer would be answer 321. But that would just be hard luck. 2) For educational questions, it is different. But they rarely get many answers, and then, rarely more than 2 pages. In this case, as I read the question, I usually start to think about how I could find an answer, and sometimes I already know the answer, more or less. Before I start ma research or start to write the answer, I would have a short look at those two pages of answers to see if no one already answered in this sense, or if I still could add interesting details. In this case, I would post an answer, otherwise, I would just give some ratings.