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I think it is your place, because it's your time being taken by people asking questions. It's an often a thankless job people do because they want to help. If y

I think it is your place, because it's your time being taken by people asking questions. It's an often a thankless job people do because they want to help. If you think you might be doing more harm than good by "just answering the question" you're not helping anymore, which then somewhat defeats the purpose many people are doing it. But really, the simpler reason is that, if your helping out others, your giving them your time, so they should respect it, so answering some questions while getting help is part of that respect.

zamadatix 4y ago
Giving people something they didn’t ask for is an iffy thing to expect respect for. I like the suggestion higher up - answer the literal and then propose why it might not be what one wants to do. The dynamics of how the conversation is happening change things too. In person it’s easy to have long back and forth with detailed explanations and inquiries without taking up much of either person’s time. Online public responses it can easily waste thousands of people’s time if you insist on giving only a partial answer and that’s not really all that benevolent. Between the two (or in between) you get different answers to when an answer type works efficiently.