You may have read how to ask questions the smart way by Eric S. Raymond. You may have even quoted it when faced with a question you thought was badly-formed. I want you to take a look at a section near the end of the article.
How to answer questions in a helpful way is the part I’m talking about. It’s a useful section. It reminds us that questions are part of a dialogue, which is a two-way process. Sometimes questions seem bad, but then giving bad answers is certainly no way to make up for that. What else should we know about answering questions?
The person who asked the question has had different experiences than you. The fact that you do not understand why the question should be asked does not mean that the question should not be asked. “Why would you even want to do that?” is not an answer.
Answer at a level appropriate to the question. If the question shows a familiarity with the basics, there’s no need to mansplain trivial details in the answer. On the other hand, if the question shows little familiarity with the basics, then an answer that relies on advanced knowledge is just pointless willy-waving.
The shared values that pervade your culture are learned, not innate. Not everyone has learned them yet, and they are not necessarily even good, valuable or correct. This is a point that Raymond misses with quotes like this:
You shouldn’t be offended by this; by hacker standards, your respondent is showing you a rough kind of respect simply by not ignoring you. You should instead be thankful for this grandmotherly kindness.
What this says is: this is how we’ve always treated outsiders, so this is how you should expect to be treated. Fuck that. You’re better than that. Give a respectful, courteous answer, or don’t answer. It’s really that simple. We can make a culture of respect and courtesy normative, by being respectful and courteous. We can make a culture of inclusion by not being exclusive.
I’m not saying that I’m any form of authority on answering questions. I’m far from perfect, and by exploring the flaws I know I perceive in myself and making them explicit I make them conscious, with the aim of detecting and correcting them in the future.
