Lazy social-signaling drives the over-application of the "XY Problem". In a private medium, Questioner and Answerer can delve into the wider context and arrive

Lazy social-signaling drives the over-application of the "XY Problem". In a private medium, Questioner and Answerer can delve into the wider context and arrive at a well-informed solution. In public however, any line-of-inquiry is corrupted by its presentation. In the specific context of public Q&A, this means that the motivation of the average answerer is often just to _present_ themselves as knowledgeable without actually being helpful. In most difficult questions I've seen posted on SO, most answerers have neither an understanding of the context nor the basis with which to compose the "right" answer. Compounding this ignorance is that the Answerer fears losing face and also that he or she is not not personally or deeply invested in the question itself. Thus, a clueless Answerer who accidentally or foolishly interjects in the thread, will eventually default to a simple strategy: negotiating the question. Less "digging" and more "dumbing", the question is simplified or distorted beyond its original intent so the Answerer can "answer" or rather discount it. They thereby "resolve" their stake in the question posed: giving them (or at least not hurting) the esteem they crave in the larger group. At the very least, they'll have said something and appeared, in their minds, to be just as smart or smarter than the questioner. StackOverflow's basic design weights against this kind of child's play, since only the Questioner can award the Answerer the checkmark. But I think the more popular Questions still suffer from the transients desperately seeking their ego-fix.