Usually the people answering this way don't know how to fix the problem being asked, they know something that upon first reading looks sort of similar and they

Usually the people answering this way don't know how to fix the problem being asked, they know something that upon first reading looks sort of similar and they want to look smart so they shout "xy problem". This is part of why this behaviour is so infuriating - it's usually the low quality responders who act this way, but there are so many of them that they drown out the high quality ones. Yes I'm bitter about SO - first they replaced single purpose mailing lists, and then they went low quality, sort of like a big box store first driving out the mom and pop stores and then replace everything with plastic low quality merchandise.