Yes it is. For instance, if someone spends years trying to solve a problem and they can't do it and they tell you that they doubt that you're going to be able t

Yes it is. For instance, if someone spends years trying to solve a problem and they can't do it and they tell you that they doubt that you're going to be able to solve it in a year and probably shouldn't base your strategies around doing so then that information is worth something - whatever the relevant entire costs are for your having done otherwise. If you respect people, then their opinions tell you things about the search space in which they live. Heck, even if you don't respect people it at least tells you nsomething about how widely known a particular thing is within comparable sections of society. There are, potentially, some good arguments for filtering your information to keep newbies out of higher level discussion where people are trying to make progress on a problem - but in the context here it seems to me at the moment that you're just being somewhat mean; I don't see what you hope to gain other than to make someone feel bad.