> Personally, since these comments aren't the comments of the article in question (usually. Sometimes they just refer you here!), I think of it less as comments to the author when posting here, and more like a discussion in a group examining that article.

But that's exactly not what they are: you can't examine an article without reading it, and in many cases it's blatantly obvious that commenters didn't read the article.

I'm fine with tangents, it's the on-topic ignorance that bothers me.