Does experts-exchange.com give accurate answers?

Factual Questions
1

In searching for answers to technical questions (hardware/software problems, programming issues) I often come across experts-exchange.com, often in the top links of Google results, and often with an eerily-similar question. However, they have a pay-to-view scheme set up, so seeing if the answers are valid, if the posts are actual posts (and not somehow bot-created based on searches, if that could be done), is impossible without joining up. Since I come across such questions moderately infrequently (maybe one or two a month, depending),their free trial won’t really help me evaluate the site overall.

So, after asking in ATMB if this was ok to post, I’m wondering if there are E-E members here who can vouch for the marketing fluff on the E-E page—that can comment on the content, credibility, and accuracy of the site.

Thanks,

Rhythm
Oh, since I’m asking about the content, credibility, and accuracy of GQ-like questions, not whether the underlying opinions are worth it, I’m posting here. May the Mods forgive me if I’m wrong…

2

I was an EE member about a thousand years ago when it was a merit-exchange based system. The problem back then was that you’d typically get 6 responses, one of which would be 100% correct, 4 which would be nudges in the right direction, and one completely useless. I cannot tell you how many times I saw people award the expert points to a silly answer and ignore the right one. So I guess the answer is that it can be helpful if you already sort of know what the right answer is.

3

I assume you can test/try out each answer before awarding points. (That is, the question isn’t so much “should I cut the blue or the red wire,” but more like “how do I get this MySQL query to jump through a hoop?”)

4

Actually, if you scroll waaaay down to the bottom of the thread, under the “Experts Exchange Zones” list, the real answers are listed there. The answer that solved the asker’s problem, if any of them did, is marked in green as the “Accepted Solution.”

This is how it works from a Google search, at least. They may have it set up to work differently if you search directly on EE.

5

Doesn’t work like that from Google for me (on FireFox; haven’t bothered with anything else). For the longest time, I’d wished that I could just blacklist these bozos from my Google results. But – so obvious – they know you’re from Google by looking at the http referrer. Simply reload the page, and bam! – all of the hustling to make you join goes away. That trick works for a lot of other sites that identify you as a Google visitor.