I often encounter (especially among academics) people who are quick to refute questions or ideas on trivial grounds based on trivial formal description errors of the type described in this post. To any non-expert the intent of the ideas or questions is clear, but the formal thinkers are often quick to dismiss based on these trivial inconsistencies. I have a strong aversion to being dismissive or mean to people, especially in public, so by default I reinterpret in those cases - "If by X you really mean Y (where the difference between X and Y is only clear to an expert well-versed in formal descriptions of the subject matter) then yes, that is an interesting idea - the pros and cons are as such...". 99% of the time they actually mean Y, but they're just not quite well-versed enough to phrase it that way - or, upon knowing that swapping from X->Y converts their statement from trivial to meaningful, they would often be happy with Y capturing the sentiment they wish to convey.<p>I have started proselytizing this approach to my colleagues, because some of them are simply too formally minded to "pull themselves out" enough to interpret such statements generously. I do think some subset do use this sort of denigrating approach to cement their authority, which I find silly.
Whenever I have to ask a semi-complicated question my brain does a mad scramble to assemble what I already know, what I think I know, what the other person knows, what I've already tried, my assumptions, why I want to know it...
I think this is related to X-Y problems where someone wants to do x, thinks that y is the way to accomplish it, but can’t do Y either, and so goes online to ask about Y.<p>Everyone else knows that Y is a weird or unusual thing to be doing, but either helpfully tries to explain how to do it, which won’t solve their real problem anyway, or tells them that Y is dumb and they’re dumb for asking about it.<p>A really helpful answer would try and think about what could motivate someone to ask about Y, and if unable to think of one, will ask why on earth they want to do Y and what are they are really trying to do.<p>Similar to this situation is that they’re asking a question _because they want to know something about the world_ and trying to meet them halfway or ask clarifying questions is much more helpful than literally answering their question as asked.
I have ask this half baked question many time in many places and I have received the lower tier answers all the time.<p>Driving on a multi-lane highways with no traffic (yes it can happen, eg upstate NY Adirondacks overnight ) you can straighten the road shifting lanes to always be on the inside of the curve. Calculate the shortest path.<p>I once vaguely phrased this what shortest line that can be drawn between two parallel curved line a constant distance apart. I think this is mathematically half baked and could be restates.
This is a good approach and good advice for better communication in general: you have to listen to both the exact words and the intent behind them. Coming from technical fields, many of us are rather biased to dismiss what others say for technical reasons only, when if we cared a bit more to look into what they are really trying to say or figure out, we could help them, understand them, and start much more interesting debates. This is too often seen in political debate too, though the bias here might come from a different side (if you can nitpick on the form of an argument, you don't have to care about anything else).
I really loved this breakdown.<p>Two useful related thoughts:<p>1. <a href="https://www.perspectiveapi.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.perspectiveapi.com</a> via Google that rates comments based on their utility and toxicity<p>2. Generally adding emotional intelligence and psychology into the picture instead of focusing solely on answering the top-level question directly. Being able to emphasize with the person asking the question is invaluable in figuring out the best way to frame your answer.<p>Sooooo many developers could use a healthy dose of improvement in #2.
This illustrates more than anything the Dunning–Kruger effect. Dilettantes and dabblers with a little knowledge often tend to be the more nasty on online forums, while actual experts have the humility of not just knowing the limits of their knowledge but more importantly have enough information to contextualize even those questions which might appear dumb to an untrained mind.
On the Physics SE a similar cluster of questions are asked about the finiteness of the speed of light e.g <a href="https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/230703/do-we-know-why-there-is-a-speed-limit-in-our-universe" rel="nofollow">https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/230703/do-we-kno...</a>, why the Principle of Least Action exists, and the “paradox” of size of the universe being larger than it’s age x c
Earlier today, on the subject of why I made a particular design choice, I went straight for tier 6. I absolutely could have promoted my response to tier 5, or even 4, but I was too focused on prevailing as correct to see that one can affirm the reasons why someone is asking a question without necessarily seizing on the more absurd aspects of the question. I think I'll be more mindful of this in the future.<p>Terrific article.
I don’t know. My main gripe with StackOverflow is question getting closed for being opinion based or not worth debating. When constant debate is actually fun and interesting. (And you don’t have to watch the threads if you don’t care.)
I think people may give half hearted questions to get better answers. Maybe half hearted questions get more interaction by people trying to clarify things, or perhaps the answers are written with more common language than jargon?<p>Could there be other reasons (apart from "Questioner Is Stupid" or Troll) to ask vaguely formatted questions?