Yes, it is discouraging seeing willful ignorance (aka, tl;dr) voted up on HN.

If people can't take the time to read the article, they shouldn't comment. Period.

Who said anything about commenting? I often enjoy a tl;dr because a tl;dr will, with more accuracy than the title, tell me whether the article is worth reading.

And yes, I almost always check the comments before reading the article (but I always read the article before commenting).

Oops, my fault.