Thank you for an interesting categorization and highlighting dynamics between the categories. Reading the article, I get the sense that being more specific in

Thank you for an interesting categorization and highlighting dynamics between the categories. Reading the article, I get the sense that being more specific in communication is a sign of better performance capability, whereas generalized communication hints at the opposite. > "One way to tell a weak engineer in a discussion thread about some problem is to see who is bringing in specific facts about how the system currently works, and who is making purely general recommendations that could apply to any system." This observation of specific versus general communication seems to surface also when being asked a question. If the question is specific, it hints at competence and effort. > "One tactic is to avoid time-asymmetrical helping. Don’t do work for them that takes much more time than it took them to ask about it." The general question offloads, to the one being asked, the work of getting down to concrete details. A specific question on the other hand relies on the questioner having done the cognitive work of comprehension before asking. A general question deserves a counter question that encourages the questioner to become more specific. In a real world environment, I can imagine—just as the article also points out—there being many factors like stress etc, influencing the communication.