[na85]

>Absolutely not. If you've actually done the research that leads the knowledge gatekeeper to ask these, these questions are easy for you to answer.

Depending on the specifics of the question being asked, sure, I agree.

But speaking only for myself, I abhor playing silly coy games of cat and mouse. I only come to chat rooms as a third/last resort exactly because so often you can't get a direct answer without satisfying somebody's ego first. It's basically hazing.

I've got a thousand things to do and it would be more expedient for both asker and giver if the response to "How do I do X?" was a simple "via Y".

[Groxx]

The people in the chatroom interact more with people who do not do this. They're trying to prevent wasting their own time, and leaving askers with precise answers to questions they didn't need answered, or sending them down the wrong path and fielding tons of opaque questions rather than finding out what's actually going on.

I get that you don't want to waste your time, that's entirely reasonable... but by asking for help you are asking others to donate their time. Refusing to acknowledge that their strategy helps them preserve their time just makes you the asshole, not them.