Comment by nullc
3 years ago
As I recall from prior XYP threads on HN, many comments appear to be XYP baddies brosplaning from an apparent position that other people online are tools that should subserviently respond to their requests, rather than human beings who have their own perspectives and motivations for responding that need to be accommodated when you want them to perform free labor.
Indeed, it's always possible that someone with an XYP shaped question really does actually need the literal thing they are asking. But the expertise of the person being asked says that it 99 out of 100 times they heard a question like that, it was someone who had a deeper level confusion and they've already been burned wasting their time solving the wrong issue many times before. If you deny that their expertise has value why are you asking them?
You know what's worse than someone octuple checking that you're solving the right problem?
Not responding to you at all or abandoning the support channel and not helping anyone at all with related issues anymore. --- which is what happens when people finally get burned out from hearing askers say "Just answer the f*king question!".
Sometimes when you seek support you just have to go through the motions even when you think they don't apply. They might not-- but they help the supporting person achieve confidence that they're not wasting your time and their own time (which ought to be a priority to you, since you're imposing on it! not wasting their time is about the only compensation a person is usually providing in an online Q/A venue), and sometimes they really do help. This also applies to level setting questions ("Is there free disk space?" "Is it plugged in?")-- themselves really a simple XYP (e.g. you think the widget doesn't work, but really you ran out of space and didn't complete the install). Even when your issue isn't XYPed taking a step back to review the basics and explain more of it to someone else can be illuminating.
Don't want to waste a "godawful amount of time" fully explaining? Well think about how the answerer feels answering the XY rutted questions over and over and over again. At least when you get through your task you'll have the reward of a solved problem, often the person helping you doesn't have that much of a payoff on the horizon. Empathy is required in both directions, but in general the greater burden should be on the party initiating the request.
(though even where something like paid support might reverse the burden, the supporters expertise is a good reason to give a lot of slack to the way they want to go about solving the problem.)
An approach that can help is to just anticipate the XY answer and (politely!) explain how your problem isn't the one people might assume and why in your initial question. If you don't know the domain well enough to do that convincingly then you likely don't know if you don't actually have the XYP to begin with. Explaining where you are and how you got there and what you think you've already tried is good-support-requesting 101.
But in any case, the harm to going through the motions and making everyone more satisfied is just part of the cost in soliciting support from strangers.
If the cost is too much for you there is always the option of continuing to work on it on your own. Or maybe try AI: https://nt4tn.net/articles/aixy.html (somewhat outdated, as GPT4 is actually better about correctly warning you about XYP, but at least if you abusively tell it to "just answer the f*king question" you're not harming anyone :) and it doesn't have the freedom to start ignoring you )
There is another kind of question that sometimes gets an XYP answer even though it wasn't an XYP: Thats where the asker is trying to get help doing something abusive or anti-social.
"How can I conceal the nuclear waste I put in the trash so the garbage men will take it?"
"Have you considered using a hazardous waste drop off site instead?"
It's possible that the asker hasn't considered that their approach is abusive or that they weren't aware of better alternatives... and even if they fully know that they are asking for help in being a jerk it's often preferable to the respondent avoid the confrontation (and escalation) of calling it out. If the asker really is just confused, responding by suggesting solving a different problem is the right answer. If they're really just a jerk no great harm is done to anyone by giving the benefit of doubt.
In this case if they're not confused about what they're asking they may well be confused about the kinds of activities the supporters are willing to aid and abet.
I've seen this most often online in people looking for help spamming, password cracking, hacking computers, deploying censorship, and committing financial fraud.
Maybe the asker is a sociopath or is simply getting paid enough to discount the harm their actions cause others -- but the same won't apply to the people answering their questions.