In my experience it's not so much a genuine "let's take a step back and see if this is the right approach". It's more of a condescending "Why are you even doin

In my experience it's not so much a genuine "let's take a step back and see if this is the right approach". It's more of a condescending "Why are you even doing THAT" (because the person doesn't actually know the answer). You see this kind of problem in person too with people who feign surprise over you not knowing something when asking a question so they can act like they're much smarter, but they're really just insecure about what they know. "You don't know what X is?!" This is toxic, but in real life the best approach is to just reiterate you don't know and ask. This usually reveals the person claiming to be surprised doesn't actually know either (or if they do you can at least quickly learn something). This doesn't work as well with an online community though and people usually just leave it.