Perhaps. There are a few other ways to look at it though- people often need to be instigated to action, so for various reasons people may see a post asking for help and pass it by. However, when they see a reply that is wrong, surely some number just want to show off or feel smarter than someone else- but perhaps they recon that no answer means you’re stuck or might find the answer yourself whereas a wrong answer could lead you to harm or waste. For example- trying to puzzle out how to make a cake or program a script just through trial and error could take hours or days or more- but wether you succeed or not you’re likely to gain a lot of experience and learn some things you wouldn’t have- you might accidentally make brownies or a cake other than what you intended and can use these things later. But if I give you a blatantly wrong recipe for cake and you trust it as right…
You are unlikely to learn much just following directions and before you realize I’m wrong you might assume you made a mistake and try to repeat the wrong directions multiple times and learn nothing- maybe even absorb essentially totally useless knowledge that might confuse or mislead you later. So I think sometimes people just need a little nudge- I’m less likely to answer a strangers question in public when they are asking a friend or group as I don’t want to but in or seem like a know it all etc- but if that same person asked a friend and the friend gave them a wrong answer I’m more likely to interject. If the wrong answer seems relatively harmless I may leave it be- but if they asked something I knew is likely to cause them problems I’m more likely to interject because there is a feeling of reason to.
One thing I’ve seen a lot with professionals and in knowledgeable online circles is a tendency to value resolve. If it is a question that is asked often and easily searchable for example, they may consider it somewhat rude or lazy or entitled. Figure any question takes the time of someone else to answer right? You are the one with the problem right? So the first issue is that if you could find the answer searching but ask instead, you’re saying the time for you to search is more valuable than the time of the person answering. If that were true you’d probably be the one with the answer though right? The second issue there is that when the answer is easy to search or get but you ask, you’re telling me how much your question is worth to you. Again- it is your problem. If the problem doesn’t mean enough to you to spend a little time researching, why would your problem mean enough to me to spend a little time answering?
The next issue is… the question. This isn’t always the case but often is the case- sometimes your questions tells people who know better that answering is probably a bad idea. Why? Simple- you had to ask. Many things are very sensitive, very precise, very potentially dangerous. Someone who needs to ask basic questions about such things is often someone who shouldn’t be poking at those things. As an example from SQL, queries tend to be safe. You can do a basic query for data all day long and hurt nothing. If you come to me and you have the access to be able to query this multi million or billion dollar database with 10,30,50 years of data in it, and you want to learn to query, knock yourself out. Follow these few steps and show you can be safe. If a person asks me basic questions on how to write to that database or delete or move things and there is no specific context that makes sense like they’re training blah blah… I probably won’t answer. You can get in too much trouble….
… there are certain questions that when you ask them and how you ask them shows you have a fundamental lack of basic ability and answering your question is probably a disservice until you learn the basics, and often times once you know the basics you’d realize you have the answer or what you need to answer. If you’re an adult it’s your freedom to cause yourself trouble, an 18yo kid can buy a gun in the USA but if I’m selling a gun and someone asks me some fundamentally basic question that indicates to me that they probably shouldn’t own a gun, I’m it selling it to them. Someone else can do it but it isn’t going to be me. I’m not their parent or nanny or guardian angel to stop an adult from doing something they might regret, but I am also a free man and that means I don’t have to help someone do something that they have indicated they probably can’t handle.
And then we get the the next issue- money. Helping people is it’s own reward sure. Have a car problem and I’m in the mood and nearby and can help? I likely will. Working on your art and wondering how people find time or get the inspiration or why you can’t seem to get a certain thing right or what someone thinks you can improve etc? I may well help too. But like… when we talk about some things like programming questions we are talking about something that someone else went to school for or put in time to learn. Likely as a career or element of a career. Someone who usually might make upwards of $100 just to solve a problem like the one you are having. Now, is that reason not to help? For some people- but that isn’t my point. My point is… why are you asking…?
I see a lot of programming questions like “I’m making this app and I can’t pass this parameter when I use this..” or “how do I get XYZ service to talk to my program…”
These questions are obviously money questions. This isn’t some guy who is making a little fun home project out of a live for programming. This isn’t a question like: “gee guys, I have a pentium XYZ chip and XYZ hardware and I’m trying to get MAC OSX to run”(this is called a “hackentosh” and they can be both nightmares and tons of fun..) “can anyone help me with this <BIOS set up> <DSDT> <etc.>?”
That second guy is just playing around for fun and anyone answering is just there for love of the hobby or to help a hobbyist out. When you post up your programming question for your job or because you’re trying to make the next hot app or whatever… that’s kinda not cool. Like- am I going to get equity? When you’re on Forbes for inventing this app am I getting a collaborator credit?
Because at the point you’re asking for profit questions, there is money binging on the answer. So why are you getting the money for the problem you didn’t solve, and what does the person that actually did the work get? We all get stuck and it’s too harsh to say that if you can’t do the job maybe it isn’t for you- but there are these sorts of fine points to things. I’m far less inclined to help someone out on a problem where I’m basically working for free so they can get paid. Of course there are all sorts of forums where professionals support each other by doing exactly that and on those forums it is much more acceptable to ask those sorts of questions I feel- but that’s the next point…
… what are you coming with? So you’ve logged in and you are a new user and have 1 post and it’s a question. Or you’ve been a user for years. You have 50 posts. They’re all questions. Im disinclined to help. Simply because you haven’t added anything. You have a hand out because you want something but what have you added to be able to ask? Doubly true for me in communities that are focused on collaborative helping. A person who shows up to such communities and doesn’t do anything but take is abusing what the community is built on. If everyone behaves like that then no one ever gets their questions answered. Again though, I still might answer if I see wrong answers because while I’m not inclined to help I also don’t want to see that person get an answer that is going to brick their set up or cause them endless frustration. There isn’t a desire for them to suffer, just maybe a desire for them to be less thoughtless or self centered, but a bad answer probably isn’t going to set them…
.. on a path of reform. So I mean- there’s tons of reasons that people might not help someone out and sometimes those reasons are at their core actually a persons way of helping. If you stack several of those things on top of each other you have situations where people are way less likely to help and if you add things like being obviously rude or seeming so entitled or obnoxious that it would be hard to image you could be oblivious… you also are less likely to get help. At the end of the day I don’t know that people are less likely to help initially though or that answering a wrong answer vs. the question comes from a desire to show off etc as much as to help. I know people are more likely to help someone they see as drowning than they are to help someone who they see as pushing on a door that says “PULL” in big letters.
These questions are obviously money questions. This isn’t some guy who is making a little fun home project out of a live for programming. This isn’t a question like: “gee guys, I have a pentium XYZ chip and XYZ hardware and I’m trying to get MAC OSX to run”(this is called a “hackentosh” and they can be both nightmares and tons of fun..) “can anyone help me with this <BIOS set up> <DSDT> <etc.>?”
That second guy is just playing around for fun and anyone answering is just there for love of the hobby or to help a hobbyist out. When you post up your programming question for your job or because you’re trying to make the next hot app or whatever… that’s kinda not cool. Like- am I going to get equity? When you’re on Forbes for inventing this app am I getting a collaborator credit?