Using Questions as Platforms

From Zanecorpwiki

• There's lots of culture on forums that is picked up by even casual members.
• Some questions are considered acceptable.
• Questions which betray "other" are subject to attack.

Specifically, I'm thinking when you go on a tech forum and someone's said, "How do I do X?" and they get an answer like, "Don't do X. If you do X, then your doing something wrong." The answers often go on, and despite effectively knowing no context will tell the asker what they they should do.

It's proper to advise posters to do something different after a good discussion and drawing out the salient facts. But I find these kind of off the cuff dismissals are embarrassing for those posting such ill-informed pontifications, and to the extent that they stifle further comments, it's embarrassing for the forum as a whole.