---
title: "Importance of current information — Knowledge data 2026"
url: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/knowledge/data/knowledge-time
year: 2026
chapter: "knowledge"
question: "KnowledgeTime"
section: "Knowledge sources and trust"
licence: "ODbL 1.0 (https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/)"
---

# Importance of current information

Recency/timestamps matter most for official docs and product/vendor docs; people tolerate stale human knowledge.

Asked as: For each source, how important is it that information you use to operate is recent or clearly timestamped? (`KnowledgeTime`, scale, optional, v2026.1)

## Results

### All Respondents

n = 13,678

|  | Important | Least important | Not very important | Somewhat important | Very important |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Code repositories or code comments | 27.1% | 1.8% | 6.0% | 14.6% | 50.5% |
| Coworkers or teammates | 30.3% | 4.4% | 11.7% | 23.4% | 30.1% |
| Customer, support, or sales information | 31.1% | 1.2% | 4.4% | 14.4% | 49.0% |
| Internal chat tools, such as Slack or Teams | 34.1% | 1.7% | 7.3% | 21.2% | 35.8% |
| Internal documentation (i.e. Design, product, or planning docs), wiki, or knowledge base | 33.2% | 1.0% | 5.2% | 18.6% | 41.9% |
| Manager or leadership | 31.4% | 3.3% | 9.1% | 20.2% | 36.1% |
| Meeting notes or transcripts | 33.1% | 1.4% | 6.1% | 16.3% | 43.1% |
| None of these | 11.8% | 11.8% | 9.7% | 30.1% | 36.6% |
| Not sure | 25.0% | 10.4% | 9.0% | 27.8% | 27.8% |
| Official docs | 29.8% | 1.0% | 3.9% | 13.2% | 52.0% |
| Past decisions or architecture records | 30.8% | 1.9% | 8.3% | 23.6% | 35.4% |
| Product, vendor, or API documentation | 31.3% | 0.9% | 3.6% | 12.9% | 51.2% |
| Project management or ticketing tools | 33.6% | 1.0% | 4.2% | 16.8% | 44.5% |
| Stack Overflow | 33.3% | 2.3% | 8.5% | 22.2% | 33.7% |
| Vendor forum | 29.5% | 1.0% | 6.5% | 20.2% | 42.8% |

In context: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/knowledge/data.md