Resolved Question

Alright. I got hit twice today. First someone wrote me because she believed I got a rather harsh answer to her question. As she told me later, the question was totally hypothetic and not really a serious one. Right. And a person answering the question was supposed to know that by .... ???

Anyone that posts and answers questions in here know by now know by now we are a crazy pot of people and we make a crazy soup of questions. Some of us may prefer to post four words questions ( 'Wat' do i know?) and enjoy the rest playing puzzle and coming up with the weirdest answers. Others, like me, can't make a question without almost writing an essay.

My point is.. if your question is nothing more than a plain phrase without anything personal how in hell can someone guess that you will get offended if you answer seriously or if you answer with a joke?

What is the rule you think then someone should follow in a question without personal clues? Do not answer because you do not know if the person behind the question will get offended by the serious version or the joke version? That would bring down the 'ask experience' session to a few boring posts I bet.

Now, the second hit.
This is a straight response to 'Why do some people answer questions on Spirituality in a mocking, rude way?'
I'm not sure my answer got the person upset but by the tone of it, I would say the asker was not a happy camper with anything less than very serious answer.
Well, see. First I would beg your pardon and ask very seriously where exactly is the rule that censors answers in 'spirituality'. You seem to imply that just because someone picked this category everybody else should refrain from using a freer speech and refrain from using humor. That is insane. Someone may ask 'why my poop looks like talking to me?' and be in spirituality category, if you get what I mean. This may very well be a serious question but it is not because of the category it belongs to, but rather the DETAILS the asker will provide to show their state of mind!

Second .. my very serious questions to all of you that post questions without anything personal and then come whining or complaining about the answers you do not like --- if you do not want your question to be answered in a way that you do not like, why don't you say so? ?

That what the 'details' session is for. In this case, a simple 'Please I wish to hear only serious answers on the subject' or 'Please understand that I would get offended by jokes on the subject' or something like it. This may not stop the truly rude or clueless people but I'm sure would make a whole lot of difference for reasonable people that have no intention to insult you when they post the serious or the silly version.

I myself look at the nature of the question being asked and based on that I do one of three things

1 I write a funny answer, a joke, a pun, something to make people laugh

2 I answer the question seriously with the reasoning behind this answer

or 3 I skip the question if I'm not comfortable to give an answer

I seem to have found the right balance since I'm making my run for the 500 best answer trophy