On one hand the going to the gym example is not a perfect analogy - the gym is a public place, and being accosted by some random person asking for help could be off-putting. Someone posting on stack overflow is not directed at anyone and is like a classified ad, it&#x27;s not directed at you. You can easily ignore it as opposed to someone walking over to you explicitly asking for help.<p>However 2 things - #1 the bile you have for those asking for help is off-putting. #2 It takes more effort for someone to respond to a question and tell them off than it does to ignore it. And some of us in the programmer community would rather take the time to make a derogatory comment instead of either ignoring the comment or actually helping that person. THAT is the sign of a bully.