Lawyer's perspective:
People want to ask me about legal issues all the time. The best way to get a useful answer is to describe your current situation, the cause of your current situation, and what you want to change. Thus:
I have severe injuries, caused by that other person hitting me with their car. I want that person's driver's license taken away.
Then I can say something like: Your desired remedy is not available for REASONS, but instead, you could get REMEDY. Here are the facts and analysis that would affect whether REMEDY is available.
In short, try to define the problem. fubarobfusco has some good advice about how to refine your articulation of a problem. That said, if you have reason to believe a person knows something useful, you probably already know enough to articulate your question.
The point of my formulation is to avoid assumptions that distort the analysis. Suppose someone in the situation I described above said "I was maliciously and negligently injured by that person's driving. I want them in prison." At that point, my response needs to detangle a lot of confusions before I can say anything useful.
In short, try to define the problem
I see you beat me to it. Yes, define your problem and goals.
The really bad thing about asking questions is that people will answer them. You ask some expert "How do I do X with Y?". He'll tell you. He'll likely wonder what the hell you're up to in doing such a strange thing with Y, but he'll answer. If he knew what your problem and goals were instead, he'd ask the right questions of himself on how to solve the problem, instead of the wonrg question that you gave him.
r/Fitness does a weekly "Moronic Monday", a judgment-free thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. I thought this seemed like a useful thing to have here - after all, the concepts discussed on LessWrong are probably at least a little harder to grasp than those of weightlifting. Plus, I have a few stupid questions of my own, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that other people might as well.