It can be telling how people react to being asked about X. I tend to ignore conversations if someone gets annoyed about getting asked what they're really trying

It can be telling how people react to being asked about X. I tend to ignore conversations if someone gets annoyed about getting asked what they're really trying to do. Though you do have to consider whether they just don't understand enough about what they want to do, to know what question to ask. A special case of Y questions are the overly abstract or general ones. "How do I [solve this kind of problem]?" It's understandable that people try to build up a repertoire of problem solving techniques, but this can be very annoying if the specific X question is simple to answer, whereas the general question is difficult. Sorry to say, but I tend to also ignore questions (I'm thinking of chat rooms) that seem overly general any more, unless I'm in a mentoring mood.