What can you do to prevent going down the rabbit-hole of answering a question where the original poster just doesn't ***get it***? 

Questions that seem innocuous or should have a straightforward answer quickly devolve into comments that reveal how big of a mess the OP is really in. And maybe I'm looking for a more graceful way to exit. 

Start with this - a disk failure:
http://serverfault.com/questions/584829/hp-proliant-dl180-g6-smart-array-p410-bay-11-error

From there, it goes into conflated error messages, [YouTube videos][1], [screenshots][2], firmware, lack of documentation, an explanation of RAID and ends with multiple suggestions to [*just replace the disk*][3]... But wait, *how DO I replace the disk?* [And why is my system with a failed disk performing slowly?][4] And even more [tangentially-related fallout][5].

Is this the state of ***Professional*** in 2014?
___

Or this simple FreeNAS drive failure:
http://serverfault.com/questions/586782/zpool-status-reports-error-what-next

*"Replace the disk"*

This spawned numerous followup questions (*some with [great][6]. [answers][7].*): 

http://serverfault.com/questions/586798/need-to-identify-disk-in-zpool-how
<br>http://serverfault.com/questions/586847/need-to-replace-disk-in-zpool-confused 
<br>http://serverfault.com/questions/586949/freenas-var-write-failed-filesystem-is-full
<br>http://serverfault.com/questions/586952/freenas-swap-pager-i-o-error-pagein-failed

But in the end, looking at this in the context of the poster's history, there was nothing but a [disastrous string of bad situations][8], each linked to the previous. Is there a point where you just give up? If I were an employer or this poster's superior, I would have serious concerns about their ability to solve problems or that they were wasting time with a solution they could not manage effectively.

___

Or a networking question:

http://serverfault.com/questions/587029/how-to-use-iscsi-mpio-to-increase-bandwidth-with-xenserver

I saw back-and-forth in the comments section. Multiple users tried to explain the flawed logic of the question via comments. One [excellent answer][9] was posted, but the OP still wasn't on the same page. I gave a [terse explanation][10] describing what the real focus of the issue should have been. 

Maybe it was colder than intended, but I notice that a lot more hand-holding is needed in questions that should not require it.

(Sometimes guidance is necessary, but there's a difference between [working with someone knowledgable who's in a bind][11] and teaching someone the basics along the way to answering a question)


  [1]: http://youtu.be/gxtxrlfhJiQ
  [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/B7AsV.jpg
  [3]: http://serverfault.com/questions/584829/hp-proliant-dl180-g6-smart-array-p410-bay-11-error#comment687447_584903
  [4]: http://serverfault.com/questions/585305/continuous-i-o-latency-error-on-esxi-5-0
  [5]: http://serverfault.com/questions/587448/esxi-alerts-to-consolidate-but-there-were-no-snapshots-taken
  [6]: http://serverfault.com/a/586917/13325
  [7]: http://serverfault.com/a/586955/13325
  [8]: http://serverfault.com/a/586967/13325
  [9]: http://serverfault.com/a/587037/13325
  [10]: http://serverfault.com/a/587250/13325
  [11]: http://serverfault.com/questions/583688/mongodb-and-zfs-bad-performance-disk-always-busy-with-reads-while-doing-only-wr