Even if the original poster never returns, answers may be helpful to others who have similar questions.

But yes, sometimes the original post is utterly senseless. They often get torn to shreds pretty quickly (the culture here is to answer nonsense with nonsense, which works fine).

This.

There's 2 ways to consider building a knowledge base. The first is the stack overflow where there should only really be 1 post about a subject, with the answer clearly marked.

The other way is what is essentially being built on gamedev, which is providing a vast amount of knowledge on a subject.

Let's start with what's probably a pretty common topic, and follow the typical train of thought

http://www.gamedev.net/index.php?s=ea5c89da48971705c7b87927285f57de&app=googlecse#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=best engine for a beginner

Too many answers?

http://www.gamedev.net/index.php?s=ea5c89da48971705c7b87927285f57de&app=googlecse#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=best%20C%23%20engine%20for%20a%20beginner

Ok, not specific enough to what I want

http://www.gamedev.net/index.php?s=ea5c89da48971705c7b87927285f57de&app=googlecse#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=best%20C%23%20engine%20for%20a%20beginner%20to%20make%20an%20mmo%20with

Why's everyone say it's so hard?

http://www.gamedev.net/index.php?s=ea5c89da48971705c7b87927285f57de&app=googlecse#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=how%20hard%20is%20it%20to%20make%20an%20mmo%20with%20C%23

So yes, even answering "drive by questions" builds a knowledge base that answers the questions other people would ask.

Even for specific tasks (asking about instancing in directx) the first page of results has multiple answers for how to instance on directx 9 (well, kind of), 10, and 11.

http://www.gamedev.net/index.php?s=ea5c89da48971705c7b87927285f57de&app=googlecse#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=instancing%20with%20directx

You always seemed very keen on answering all those ambiguous questions you now tell you dont like seeing; and seemed to get points fast, because on average your posts got more positive than negative reactions.

Maybe you are just a bit tired of these? But changing the world to serve you is going to be difficult.

You could improve on not jumping as fast on such conclusions or assumptions about other people, btw.

From my experience in reading the For Beginners forum, I'd say there are three general types of people who respond to threads:

1) there are people who have recently come into their own as programmers and who are trying to pay back to the community at large the help that they received on the forums. They usually seem to post answers for a while, then get jaded and stop.

2) there are people with moderate experience who just want to be helpful in general, and who put their 2c worth in now and then when it suits their fancy.

3) there are the people who make up a small core of people who have a lot of experience and who spend a lot of time answering questions.

The first two groups are really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things (and I intend no offense with this statement towards people in these groups - I'm in the second group myself). While the intent of these people is good, on the whole, their tenure is short and there is a constant supply of people to take their place when they're no longer around. So really, it's the third set of people who really count. Perhaps it's just me, but I get the feeling that most of these people seem to have developed an instinct for knowing when a question is hopeless, and when it is just misguided.

And while sometimes even the regulars get it wrong and answer a thread that goes nowhere, these are the people who aren't going away, and who will be helping someone else tomorrow.

That's a fairly accurate observation as far as I can tell.

My intention was to help make sure that people don't burn themselves out before the graduate to become group 3 members.

I know that 'make sure' is naive, but it can't hurt to raise the topic once in a while to keep a certain level of awareness.

You're correct, it certainly doesn't hurt. however, I really don't feel that any measures should be taken to restrict what gets asked. I'm pretty sure that most people who are genuinely seeking help do actually get it, and methods for trying to eliminate the people who are wasting time would probably work against the people who need help but who just might just come across as trollish, either due to language barriers or just general inexperience.

edit:

P.S. I hope my comments do not come across as dismissive of your concerns. I do believe that as a community, self exploration is important. I just also believe that the For Beginners section needs to be more lenient in regard to the people who post there, as they are the people we really want to be encouraging to become a part of our community.

I am after various tricks of the trade that people use when they discover that the question really sucks.

Yeas, that's a tricky one. To be honest, I don't think there's a hard and fast rule. I know that for myself, I can usually determine when a thread isn't going to go anywhere, but I couldn't tell you exactly how I know. I guess it's just 20 years of internet experience. ;)

edit:

Upon further reflection, perhaps there isn't really time being wasted. Perhaps that time we're "wasting" replying to trolls is how we gain our experience.