Ian R.
So now, I've opted to be more of a reader-learner and infrequent (due mostly to lack of expertise) educator and strictly limit the questions I pose.
So you ask questions, don't get the answers you expected, and that makes you
stop asking questions? That would be the time to post again saying some polite or not version of "that wasn't what I asked; how well did xxxxx work when you used it" -- and then using the delete key on email reflectors or backspace on forums if you then see further Facegotistic posts that ignore the honing-in. That
they don't get it shouldn't damage your ability to get it.
I have the problem, fueled by the relatively long absence of a functioning community-search feature, of someone who asks a less-well-defined question about doing something (often because they don't know either best practice or alternatives yet), and I include all sorts of details and issues about doing it to have everything including the caveats and 'gotcha' details in one place for reference. Many people don't like this, and I'll be among the first to cheerily admit that I have the New Yorker's tendency to stack contingency plans on top of contingency plans, define exactly what to do when you won't have time to think about it, and not have to make mistakes you only suffer and don't learn from. As a case in point: I had someone staying with me in the '80s who was trying to get herself established in theatre -- that meant she was riding the bus from suburbs into upper Manhattan and taking the subway to get to midtown. I gave her specific instructions on where to go, where to stand on the platform, how to be in the second door of the second car going downtown and the first door of the third car uptown ... she started complaining about the overcomplication. Then she actually rode the train, and found the stairwells right opposite the door to be ahead of the cattle call, and the exit to the street up and around a corner rather than the length of a platform the wrong way from where she wanted to go.
Of course this presumes that the advice is sound. I try at least to make any advice I give objective and reproduceable, rather than opinionated or habit, but I suspect I fail some proportion of the time (for which I only say, 'ignore me next time if it bothers you!).
(Incidentally: one sure way to keep me out of a thread is to tell me (politely or otherwise) to butt out. As I said, I'm from New York, where that is how people who respect each other talk, and from New Jersey where chop-busting is almost a cultural ritual. So if you find it distracting -- say so. I'm not above redacting posts if I misunderstand the point, too -- so say so if so.
We're all friends here -- or ought to be.