In my experience it&#x27;s not so much a genuine &quot;let&#x27;s take a step back and see if this is the right approach&quot;.<p>It&#x27;s more of a condescending &quot;Why are you even doing THAT&quot; (because the person doesn&#x27;t actually know the answer).  You see this kind of problem in person too with people who feign surprise over you not knowing something when asking a question so they can act like they&#x27;re much smarter, but they&#x27;re really just insecure about what they know.<p>&quot;You don&#x27;t know what X is?!&quot;<p>This is toxic, but in real life the best approach is to just reiterate you don&#x27;t know and ask.  This usually reveals the person claiming to be surprised doesn&#x27;t actually know either (or if they do you can at least quickly learn something).  This doesn&#x27;t work as well with an online community though and people usually just leave it.