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dianalauren's avatar

Why do people on Fluther respond to questions with "why would you ask that?"?

Asked by dianalauren (251points) September 23rd, 2009
31 responses
“Great Question” (3points)

what’s wrong with simple curiousity and pondering

Observing members: 0
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Answers

andrew's avatar

Can you give more specific details to your question?

wundayatta's avatar

@andrew LOL!!!

Very subtle! I like! I like!

Val123's avatar

@andrew LOLX2!!
Actually, I’m curious to hear the answer…what kinds of questions do you ask that get that kind of response?

eponymoushipster's avatar

Why would you even ask something like this?~

Bluefreedom's avatar

Why do people answer a question with a question? Hmmm….........

NaturalMineralWater's avatar

Because contrary to popular and delusional belief, there is such a thing as a stupid question.

dianalauren's avatar

Andrew, can you clarify why you would ask me to be more specific?

Val123's avatar

Do you have a specific question that they could look at perhaps, where that was said? I think they’re saying this question is to broad and general to be able to answer with a specific reason.

dianalauren's avatar

Really? Why?

dianalauren's avatar

For instance, a few weeks ago I asked “how do I train my dog to no longer use a crate” and someone responded with “why would you want to do that”... annoying answer!

eponymoushipster's avatar

obviously not that annoying. it took you a few weeks to react to it

Val123's avatar

Were they asking why would you want to use a crate to train your dog, or why would you want to untrain him from the crate? (I responded to that Q just now, by the way)

El_Cadejo's avatar

Because people ask some really fucktarded questions on here sometimes.

Dog's avatar

Ohhh the topic “snarky.” That is such an awesome term!

I would like to own a snark. It sounds like an awesome pet.

That being said, once in a while there have been actually good questions that got such a remark amongst the well- thought- out answers.

We all have different experiences in life.
I can tell you how to replace the head gasket on a car but might not know how to program my tv remote. Most of the time we Flutherites respect each other enough to tolerate a variety of questions.

When someone thinks a question is stupid I ignore it.

Dog (25152points)“Great Answer” (4points)
Val123's avatar

@Dog It does! And you could name it Snarky!

Dog's avatar

@Val123 I will check with my local pet store. I wonder what they eat.

Dog (25152points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Val123's avatar

lurves?

Dog's avatar

@Val123 Of course! I should have known that!

Dog (25152points)“Great Answer” (1points)
XOIIO's avatar

Why exactly are you asking this and what for?

AstroChuck's avatar

@andrew- Tsk tsk. The first response is a quip? For shame. You wouldn’t catch me doing that.

Val123's avatar

@dog LOL I’m thinking canned lurves when they’re wittle, and if you get a snark that grows, like big and huge, you’ll want to switch to 50 pound sacks of dried lurves. Canned lurves can get WAY expensive! :)

Dog's avatar

@Val123 Better to start them off on dried lurves and not let them get a taste for the canned so they do not develop a taste for them.

Dog (25152points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Val123's avatar

@Dog Of course! You are so right. It would disrupt their digestive system too. Have you ever seen lurve throw up? It’s hideous!

YARNLADY's avatar

@AstroChuck That’s because if you did it you would get flagged or moderated, and who would moderate him?

YARNLADY's avatar

Sometimes it helps to know more details about a question, so we can give a more meaningful answer.

andrew's avatar

@all: I was being serious. Looks like you all proved dianalaurens’s point. SNAP!

I was looking for something similar to Val123: a specific example.

@dianalauren One of the side effects of getting a bunch of responses on Fluther is that you’ll get opinions that are totally contrary to the question—like things saying “Why would you even do that”. This isn’t even unique to Fluther—I’ve had this happen to me on other sites, on newsgroups, and on IRC.

What I will say is that on Fluther, we do try to keep things like that to a minimum.

@YARNLADY I’ve been moderated before. And shamed by the moderation team.

YARNLADY's avatar

@andrew me too

AstroChuck's avatar

@andrew- Can you give more specific details with your response?

SuperMouse's avatar

I think it would be safe to say that sometimes the thought process behind a question can be quite interesting. I mean it might be interesting to know what motivated this question. Had he just watched Alive, was he contemplating what he would do if he was ever stuck with a wagon train without food while crossing the prairie? So really “why would you ask” could very well be a legitimate answer.

wundayatta's avatar

“Why would you ask that?”

Sometimes people just don’t understand the question. Or they don’t understand what you are getting at, since you could be getting at a number of different things. So that could be asking for more details. The proper thing to do is to provide more detail in the question (like next time you ask one) or to add more details later on in the discussion. We may be smart on fluther, but we still have not perfected our mind-reading abilities.

Sometimes people find the assumptions in your question to be contrary to what they believe. So the person challenging your crate question might have thought you never should have used a crate at all, or that you shouldn’t want to get the dog out of the crate practice. It was certainly an annoying answer, but sometimes that happens. The proper thing to do is to flag the question as not helpful, and the mods will probably remove it.

Grisaille's avatar

Because some questions really are that stupid. Just sayin’.

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