I think this is related to X-Y problems where someone wants to do x, thinks that y is the way to accomplish it, but can’t do Y either, and so goes online to ask about Y.
Everyone else knows that Y is a weird or unusual thing to be doing, but either helpfully tries to explain how to do it, which won’t solve their real problem anyway, or tells them that Y is dumb and they’re dumb for asking about it.
A really helpful answer would try and think about what could motivate someone to ask about Y, and if unable to think of one, will ask why on earth they want to do Y and what are they are really trying to do.
Similar to this situation is that they’re asking a question _because they want to know something about the world_ and trying to meet them halfway or ask clarifying questions is much more helpful than literally answering their question as asked.
To their credit, the economics SE recently answered the question "why is the price of oil negative?" with an explanation of futures, and not with "it isn't"
The closest thing I've experienced is the value of a CRT computer monitor in my locale, which is a negative 15 dollars because you have to buy a sticker from the city in order to dispose of it.
Note that while this can be helpful in general, it's often unhelpful on Stack Exchange.
It results in people who do want to know about Y ending up with a high-scoring search result which doesn't contain information about Y.
And even for the original questioner, the discussions about why they want to do Y may well take up more time than it would have taken for them to read an accurate response, decide to rule out doing Y, and go on to ask X separately.
Everyone else knows that Y is a weird or unusual thing to be doing, but either helpfully tries to explain how to do it, which won’t solve their real problem anyway, or tells them that Y is dumb and they’re dumb for asking about it.
A really helpful answer would try and think about what could motivate someone to ask about Y, and if unable to think of one, will ask why on earth they want to do Y and what are they are really trying to do.
Similar to this situation is that they’re asking a question _because they want to know something about the world_ and trying to meet them halfway or ask clarifying questions is much more helpful than literally answering their question as asked.