I agree. however if I was the guy that posted that and then came it to see these responses I would RUN the other way. I would feel like some of the people on this forum didn't want me here because I was new and didn't know a lot.
Now, I freely admit that this could be some lazy kid in college who figured 'beer, that should be easy' but they could just as easily be just like any of the new folks that come on here to ask if they should pitch their yeast when the wort is at 80* 'like the instructions say'. Should they have to chat with us for a week or so first?
Certainly asking specific questions would net them more information but in what form? when the assignment is 'design a survey and gather data with it' you can't use conversations for a forum. it has to be a survey.
I'm just trying to put a different perspective out there. Let's remember when we were in school and feeling overwhelmed. Would it have helped if people we approached for help told us we hadn't earned it?
Agreed. Nobody likes to be duped but that's the necessary risk if we're going to be welcoming to those new to the hobby-obsession. To me, this forum is about earnest sharing of knowledge in a virtual community setting. We tend to take posters at face value with a healthy level of trust, and we happily accept and answer the same post after post, usually without any comment that the poster could have / should have done a simple search before blithely posting a much-repeated question.
I agree with Mort that this goodwill should extend to posts of this sort. It's easy to conclude that we may be being used, but who really knows.
If this post was some sort of an odd hoax, then some of our egos were mildly harmed and we'll quickly get over it.
If this post was genuine, then we are slamming someone who is reaching out to the homebrewing community, albeit with a specific agenda and project to complete. As was said, anyone getting this kind of reception would rightly want to get out of AHA Dodge.