On the other hand, I see too many technical people assuming the questioner must be asking the wrong question on IRC and mailing lists. This wastes time, and ca

On the other hand, I see too many technical people assuming the questioner must be asking the wrong question on IRC and mailing lists. This wastes time, and can be rather rude, when the questioner was perfectly correct to be asking the question the way that he was (and this is only determined after 3 minutes of arguing and insinuations about the questioners intelligence). This often turns into looking like the "even ruder" example with question two. If a short answer is possible, why not answer it and ask why if you suspect that they were really asking the wrong question?