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There are poor questions and poor answers - you have pointed out one category of the latter. Unfortunately it leads to new "contributors" taking the lead from old hands especially when they see these cut and pasted homilies upvoted by the attendant acolytes.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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And with the odd changes to the Stack Overflow licensing model, we might see more people popping over to CP to try alternatives (although to be fair I don't know what the CP licensing model is) which means we'll have a lot more newbs to feast upon upset and confused users.
Er, I can't think of a funny signature right now.
How about a good fart to break the silence?
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Since being polite and trying to people have always been my goals I really would appreciate if you could explain why the posts seem offensive or make the OP feel bad in some other way?
Nevermind my original post, I completely misunderstood Bill's post.
Thank you for your kind words!
modified 17-Jan-16 4:48am.
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Not to worry, Mika, you are angelic 
cheers, Bill
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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Oh, sorry! I obviously misunderstood your post  Back to English lessons 
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No, I'm sorry, you can't name and shame without pointing out how and where they supposedly have erred.
That simply isn't fair! 
<edit>It seems I have misunderstood. Sorry about that.</edit>
modified 16-Jan-16 16:55pm.
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Being a non-native speaker I have difficulty in following some of Bill's ornate statements but I think here the persons he named are those who are not being adressed by his first paragraph.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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If that's the case, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that misunderstood.
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After having reread the op three times, I believe I have to agree with you.
Ornate is a good word BTW. There are so many frills to the sentence that the meaning gets lost in the squiggles. 
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Sorry about that, Jorgen. Will try to keep it less baroque. cheers, Bill
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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No worries, I'm the one that should excuse myself for drawing to fast conclusions, when my English simply failed me.
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Ah, Sascha, sorry about that; I get to drinking my hot soy-milk with palm-tree sugar late at night, and get a bit carried away.
Vocabulary may be the only thing I've got going for me.
I respect your helpful efforts in QA !
cheers, Bill
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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No worries, Bill, I got it eventually and it's fun to get my English skills challenged 
BillWoodruff wrote: I respect your helpful efforts in QA !
Not an awful lot, lately, but thank you. After returning from my break I'm having the impression that the topics of questions have moved away from my expertise.
BillWoodruff wrote: Vocabulary may be the only thing I've got going for me.
That's not the case!
cheers, Sascha
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Sascha Lefèvre wrote: my English skills challenged
Bill can certainly do that.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I do try to give posters the benefit of the doubt. But when I see a question like "Please send college registration source code", or "My thesis is due tomorrow, please give solution", I do have a faint urge to scream.
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If they post anything like that, there is no doubt anymore.
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Yeah, yeah whatever. Prodigy sampled The Osmonds? How have I never know this? 
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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This is why we have the voting system in place. 
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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I blame Google!
Okay, it is societal and Google at an intersection.
A long time ago, you had to Google 3-5 variations on your question (I still do sometimes),
to find what you are looking for. Using alternative words, etc.
But, Google got good enough that your first guess is usually right (for non-technical things),
so often, that you rarely google twice for "facts/information".
My daughter is 16. If her first Google attempt fails. She assumes the answer simply does not exist!
(she also hollers into my office FROM her keyboard for the spelling of words, which I tell her to Google in another tab, so there is intrinsic laziness going on as well).
Somehow we have to RE-EDUCATE people that "Searching" for an existing answer is NOT a single Google Search, but a series of well thought out searches. It is an attempt to FIND an answer, not just an obligatory quick search of the obvious.
We have to get them to understand that their question will be read by MANY people. They will waste 1-2 minutes looking it over. Such that a question NOT ASKED is a real time saver, and a question that is asked but should not have been is Rude.
But that last part flies in the face of "there is no such thing as a Stupid Question". Which I tend to believe in.
And that, my friends is where the dilemma lies.
The ignorance of not knowing enough to do an adequate search, nor having many other options other than asking a group that might know enough to simply answer your question. Kinda like being in a group and just throwing a question out there...
Unfortunately, just throwing the questions out there is the problem.
Maybe we collect the information, and generate the first 30 google searches they should do.
And after they click the links, and spend some time, then they can post the question???
(until they get a reputation?)
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Require a minimum number of characters for any QA question; and limit the maximum (so as to prevent posting reams of code).
Calculate the Flesch Reading Ease of the question; if it false below a certain level, "encourage" the poster to reformat their question by otherwise rejecting it. Note that the poster needs to properly "style" (tag) the question's text versus any code for readability calculations ... (bonus: properly formatted text and code).
The extra "thought" required to post a question should eliminate many triflers.
A couple of hours / days to develop.
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MS is pushing a 'recommended' update that breaks the Export to PDF function for Crystal Reports. The update, KB3102429[^] apparently adds Azerbaijani Manat and Georgian Lari currency symbols to the Arial and TNR fonts.  Luckily, uninstalling fixes the issue.
I'm not sure what other software might be affected...just putting the word out!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I uninstalled Crystal Reports years ago. 
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Software is so fragile!
A change to add currency symbols to a font prevents the export to PDF function working?
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