False XP Problem is a pet peive of mine actually. Personally, I downvote any answer on e.g. Stack Overflow that doesn't answer the question asked. The proper

False XP Problem is a pet peive of mine actually. Personally, I downvote any answer on e.g. Stack Overflow that doesn't answer the question asked. The proper way to respond to any technical question, IMO, is first answer it exactly as ask if you can (if you don't, then don't answer). After that, you may optionally ask what the person is trying to do and offer your expertise. The issue I run into is this: I work in the enterprise environment. I have a lot of experience but sometimes I'm forced into doing something seemingly stupid that you would normally never want to do (obviously more complicated than the silly "last 3 characters" problem). So I ask on SO giving as little detail as possible, purposely because I'm hoping to avoid a bunch of wasted time with "but you don't need to do that you can do solution A", where solution A is a solution I already wanted to do but was unable because of some reality of the company I work for (and no, I can't download or install anything and I won't be able to change that). All the obvious solutions will be this way. What I actually needed was what I asked and I had to ask precisely because I also never normally want to do this so I don't know how. I find the kind of answers that some people advocate for extremely arrogant. By answering e.g. an SO question by answering something that wasn't asked you (a) assume you know more than the person asking (you may, or you may not) and (b) assume there will never be another user anywhere that will actually need the answer to the question that was asked. I get hit by (b) the most: I put my question into google, I actually find an SO question that I need the answer to but some jerk explained the user wanted something else, answered that and then, of course, the thread died.