The goal of asking a question is not to get the exact answer to the words you spoke, it is to solve the problem the question is inspired by. It's a funny psychological thing, though, where people perfectly comfortable with the idea they don't know the answer to a question are easily offended by the implication that they don't know what question would lead to a solution, even though the foundational knowledge to answer the question is often the same as that required to ask it.
The reason people assume it's the wrong question is because they've seen a thousand other people ask the wrong question. This assumption is not a reflex that comes naturally, it is learned.
Experienced people who really have the question, understand XY just fine and start off with the context, but are happy to provide more; experienced people who say they are offended at common assumptions of XY tend to be in complete denial about legitimate cases of XY.
> Experienced people who really have the question, understand XY just fine and start off with the context, but are happy to provide more; experienced people who say they are offended at common assumptions of XY tend to be in complete denial about legitimate cases of XY.
That's not how it works on Stackoverflow and similar sites. Here's what happens when an experienced person who really does have the question, understands XY just fine, provides context, and is willing and able to provide more context is needed tries to get an answer on Stackoverflow.
1. They do a search and find that people have asked X before on Stackoverflow.
2. They read those questions and answers and find that in all of them the answerers decided that it was an XY problem and answered Y. Maybe the answers were right or maybe they were wrong, but in either case nobody answered X.
3. They post a new question asking X, explaining that the existing questions and answers do not apply because the person actually needs X and provides sufficient context to show this.
4. The question quickly gets closed as a duplicate of one or more of the others.
The reason people assume it's the wrong question is because they've seen a thousand other people ask the wrong question. This assumption is not a reflex that comes naturally, it is learned.
Experienced people who really have the question, understand XY just fine and start off with the context, but are happy to provide more; experienced people who say they are offended at common assumptions of XY tend to be in complete denial about legitimate cases of XY.