The first thing to understand is that a lot of the technical people you'll find around here actually like hard problems and good, thought-provoking questions about them. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here. If you give us an interesting question to chew on we'll be grateful to you; good questions are a stimulus and a gift. Good questions help us develop our understanding, and often reveal problems we might not have noticed or thought about otherwise. "Good question!" is a strong and sincere compliment.
Despite this, a lot of us oldschool guys have a reputation for meeting simple questions with what looks like hostility or arrogance. It sometimes looks like we're reflexively rude to newbies and the ignorant. But this isn't really true.
What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking a question. People like that are time sinks - they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer.
We realize that there are many people who just want to drive the car, and who have no interest in learning technical details. For most people, a car is merely transportation, a means to an end; they have more important things to do and lives to live. We acknowledge that, and don't expect everyone to take an interest in the technical matters that fascinate us. Nevertheless, our style of answering questions is tuned for people who do take such an interest and are willing to be active participants in problem-solving. That's not going to change. Nor should it; if it did, we would become less effective at the things we do best.
We're volunteers. We take time out of busy lives to answer questions, and at times we're overwhelmed with them. So we filter what we answer. In particular, we don't reply to questions from people who appear to be "time sinks" in order to spend our question-answering time more efficiently, On people who will use the information we provide & will learn from it...
If you find this attitude obnoxious, condescending, or arrogant, check your assumptions. We're not asking you to genuflect to us -- in fact, most of us would love nothing more than to deal with you as an equal and welcome you into our culture, if you put in the effort required to make that possible. But it's simply not efficient or practical for us to try to help people who are not willing to help themselves. It's OK to be ignorant; it's not OK to be stupid.
So, while it isn't necessary to already be technically competent with the car to get attention from us, it is necessary to demonstrate the kind of attitude that leads to competence - alert, thoughtful, observant, willing to be an active partner in developing a solution. If you can't live with this sort of discrimination, we suggest you stop working on the Supra, sell it and buy a Honda Civic (they are cheap & reliable if left stock) instead of asking us to personally donate help to you.
If you decide to come to us for help, you don't want to be one of the "time-sinks". You don't want to seem like one, either. The best way to get a rapid and responsive answer is to ask it like a person with smarts, confidence, and clues who just happens to need help on one particular problem.
