Another common example is people seeking help at upstream projects for packages provided by their linux distro that have subtle changes which upstream knows not

Another common example is people seeking help at upstream projects for packages provided by their linux distro that have subtle changes which upstream knows nothing about. Honestly though, that's life. I don't think its that big a deal, if you've ever done open source user support you'll know that people ask about all sorts of crazy things. You're lucky if they are even asking about software and not how to wash a car.