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My big beef (and this happens on S.O. all the time) is when I ask a detailed question about how to do some very specific ABC thing, and instead of answering, th

My big beef (and this happens on S.O. all the time) is when I ask a detailed question about how to do some very specific ABC thing, and instead of answering, the responders try to question my requirements, turn the problem into a XY problem[1], or answer something totally different. "What are you really trying to do?" "ABC is not how I'd solve the problem I imagine you are working on." "I don't know how to do ABC, but I know how to do DEF..." "Why do you want to do ABC?" I mean, thanks for all of your unsolicited design input, I guess, but I'm pretty specifically asking for help with ABC. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
I also hate this. In asking the question, I frequently have to boil done what can be a very lengthy set of requirements and constraints and so on into a compact minimal version to demonstrate that I want to know how to use Y to X. But then comes the 'why you doing it that way', and the answer is because I have a lengthy set of requirements and constraints that I don't want to have delve into because all I want to know is how to use Y to get X. Frustration!
dqv 2y ago
It's the XY Problem Problem. What you describe is exactly why I get annoyed when someone parrots "XY Problem! XY Problem!" in response to a question. Sometimes the answer to the question would still be useful for people who need to use it for a different problem. I wish I had saved these examples, but I've seen numerous SO answers where they don't answer the direct question because it's an "XY Problem". Then someone asks the question again, but specific to a problem where it makes sense and ... it's marked as a fucking duplicate of the one that calls it an XY Problem. Instead of marking this as duplicate or calling it an XY Problem, how about you X out Your browser window before we have a Problem? A tangential problem occurs in business. I'll ask someone for some document and they'll reply "I already sent that to you" (contextually this is meant to be snarky - the intent was to demean for being disorganized or whatever). No document attached. Clearly I don't have it, or I wouldn't have asked. It's such a foreign concept to me to not respond with the fucking document even if I wanted to be snarky about having already sent it. The cherry on top is when they say that they already sent it, the document was clearly authored after the time I sent the request, and they don't even bother to apologize.

Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago

I also hate this. In asking the question, I frequently have to boil done what can be a very lengthy set of requirements and constraints and so on into a compact minimal version to demonstrate that I want to know how to use Y to X. But then comes the 'why you doing it that way', and the answer is because I have a lengthy set of requirements and constraints that I don't want to have delve into because all I want to know is how to use Y to get X. Frustration!

dqv 2y ago

It's the XY Problem Problem. What you describe is exactly why I get annoyed when someone parrots "XY Problem! XY Problem!" in response to a question. Sometimes the answer to the question would still be useful for people who need to use it for a different problem. I wish I had saved these examples, but I've seen numerous SO answers where they don't answer the direct question because it's an "XY Problem". Then someone asks the question again, but specific to a problem where it makes sense and ... it's marked as a fucking duplicate of the one that calls it an XY Problem. Instead of marking this as duplicate or calling it an XY Problem, how about you X out Your browser window before we have a Problem? A tangential problem occurs in business. I'll ask someone for some document and they'll reply "I already sent that to you" (contextually this is meant to be snarky - the intent was to demean for being disorganized or whatever). No document attached. Clearly I don't have it, or I wouldn't have asked. It's such a foreign concept to me to not respond with the fucking document even if I wanted to be snarky about having already sent it. The cherry on top is when they say that they already sent it, the document was clearly authored after the time I sent the request, and they don't even bother to apologize.