[vinniec]

But sometimes this happens because the questioner wants to avoid other people's waste of time asking a more specific and limited question instead of a generic one. Often this happens because the environment where the question is asked is highly selective and does not accept too verbose and indirect questions. The solution is to be more open to conversation on both sides.

[caturopath]

That isn't my experience at all. In contexts that are highly conversational, people constantly ask XY problems. It's hard to see that the path you went down so far may or may not be correct, so a lot of people just assume their last three determinations in solving their problem were valid.

Conversational environments certainly make it easier to root cause them, but it's often still painful.