Sometimes I have multiple solutions to a problem in mind and want to throughly investigate them, but run into a minor road block when investigating one of them.
In forums, some of the most annoying threads are people that are trying to help you "solve your real problem" instead of helping with the specific question at hand.
What usually happens as one of the 'solve your real problem' people is context. You searched for a path and ended up with a path of A->B->C->D->#block->F but you only tell the group about D->#block and all the readers are guessing how you constructed a path to get to D. The destination of F is often also not clear and missing from the problem description. Even if the reader can approximate a route from A->...->D->#block->F they have a chance of applying their own experience, because often D->#block is a true dead end of the hopeful path of A->F.
Too many systems have contextual inputs that only make the solution apparent with adequate context, so really we are hoping for A and F.
You know what's even more annoying? People who ask very misguided questions, because they're obviously trying to solve a wrong problem, and yet insist on doing things their own way even though it will lead them nowhere. They're much more common than people who know what they're talking about, and it's usually easy to tell them apart based on the communication style.
More common perhaps, but not always more significant. Stack Overflow is a messy blend of the two: lots of questions want to do some strange thing, and it's not always clear why.
The result is that people who don't know better are taught how to do dangerous things (like messing with the history of shared git repos), while people with weird special circumstances get second guessed and lectured.
At least online, I absolutely disagree with the idea that it's easy to tell the two groups apart. Doing so is one of the bigger challenges for lots of "advice" forums.
while people with weird special circumstances get second guessed and lectured.
I'd argue that if they cannot make it clear they are in special circumstances rather than being clueless, then they deserve second guessing and lecturing. That's what I meant by communication style.
This might be the deepest issue with Stack Overflow.
People post some bizarre objective/problem (because the bizarre stuff is what you need to ask about), and half the comments are people asserting that their goal is wrong.
There's no clear solution, though, because half the time the goal really is misguided, and the other half the "right" way is for some reason unavailable. The best answer I've seen is for commenters to offer "you really shouldn't do that normally, but you could try this to make it happen".
In forums, some of the most annoying threads are people that are trying to help you "solve your real problem" instead of helping with the specific question at hand.