Why is answers so bad?

Despite being done by volunteers, a fair number of the answers here are actually of good quality and reasonably correct.

However, there is the problem that any dingus with an internet connection can answer a question. The supervisors try to correct bad ones, but there are a lot more idiots out there than supervisors. You might want to consider the "recommended" rating of the last editor in evaluating the quality of the answer.... someone with a four-digit recommended rating probably usually gives good answers, someone with a single-digit rating most likely does not (they could just be new, of course).