Do you have suggestions for either: a. dealing with it b. getting people to answer the right question
(a) Recognise that getting upset over it does not achieve your purpose.
(b) Have you tried asking for what you want? For example:
Elo: (question)
A.N.Other: (answer not addressing what you wanted)
Elo: That's all very well, but what I really want to know is (restatement of the question)
etc., many variations possible depending on context.
Having answered your question, I shall now say something which is not an answer to your question. What is your experience of the other side of that situation, when someone asks you a question?
As a software developer, I spend a lot of time on both sides of this. When a user reports a problem, I need to elicit information about exactly what they were doing and what happened, information that they may not be well able to give me. There's no point in getting resentful that they aren't telling me exactly what I need to know off the bat. It's my job to steer them towards what I need. And when users ask me questions, I often have to ask myself, what is the real question here? Questions cannot always be answered in the terms in which they were put.
That's all very well, but what I really want to know is (restatement of the question)
I like this idea, but I fear that means my question asking process has to start including a "wait for the irrelevant answer, then ask the question again" process. Which would suck if that's the best way to go about it. My question could include a "this is the most obvious answer but it won't work so you should answer the question I asked" which is kind of what I was including with the statement, ("assuming there isn't something wrong with the ...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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