That wasn’t the point, when a member is already irritated by a repeated question, then they can also ignore that particular post. Often, emotions a person went through that day, also colour the way a question is perceived.
I do appreciate your points, they are great, but there are many roads that lead to Rome.
That wasn’t a direct reply to either earlier post, but rather a point about how asking people who want to be helpful not to help can be disheartening (and it’s definitely not an answer to help vampirism).
There’s also a variant that pops up occasionally, where someone asks for help but doesn’t get the answer they want, and they (essentially) tell people (who are trying to help them) to go away.
I was replying to people who expressed concern that with the popularity of the distro there will be many annoying newbies and “help vampires” on the forum. Sure, that may be the case, but they should not really inconvenience anyone, as those who find them annoying can simply ignore them (or even block them), having no obligation to assist them in solving their problems.
My whole point is this: if you think someone does not deserve your time and effort (for whatever reason, but in this case, mainly because he or she could not be bothered to ask a question in a meaningful and polite way), nobody reasonable should think any less of you for not wanting to step in and help.
One the one hand, I agree - if help vampires are ignored then they have no impact. However, if experienced community members ignore vampirism but it is enabled by other members then the problem persists - and that’s not good for the community as a whole.
I agree with all of your points
I’m just wondering:
How do new users come to appreciate this expectation? Without further information (perhaps even an automated message upon joining the forums), how is a new user supposed to know that s/he needs some facility with (or the willingness to learn how to use) the Linux terminal to solve a (rare) problem when it occurs? A Linux-curious user might see that EndeavourOS is near the top of the (terribly flawed) Distrowatch rankings, and then end up on the EndeavourOS forums without a clue of this expectation, expecting instead hand-holding help when there is a problem.
The problem is that everyone draws the line at a different spot.
Some people call anyone who doesn’t try to solve a problem themselves a help vampire. Others think that as long as it less than 20 questions per day we are fine.
Ultimately, we are not a community that requires a high degree of self-sufficiency. We generally are willing to spoon feed people to get them started. This is different than some other communities and that is OK. As with everything, there is a line where it becomes overwhelming and in these cases the moderators can and do step in. It might not be as soon as some people would like and it might be sooner than others would like.
That being said, if I look back over the last year, we have had very few real problems with serious “help vampires” here. When we have, it has mostly taken care of itself.
Oh yes, you can say that again. 
There we go! Someone gets where I’m coming from!
I’m certainly not out for a vampire hunt. It wouldn’t be true to our norm. But on the flip side of that, I just don’t want to see @ricklinux it anyone else juggling 5 or more 100+ reply help threads for them to be self solved or to find out it was an xyproblem or because they said they did ________ with no problem to later find out they didn’t actually do it correctly. . .
These are just a few examples.
I know we’ve kind of disagreed on this one in the past, but I hate to admit you’re more right than not on this one. I’m not upset by repeated easy to solve linked solutions as much as the long drawn out help threads where we’re trying to help and either can’t get a reply, avoid the question, change topics mid way, change the problem, etc. These are whom to be wary of imo.
If someone refuses to answer questions or avoids answering questions that is a very different problem. In those cases, I either walk away, or tell the person to answer the question if they want further support.
I don’t think there is anyone on this forum who finds “self-solving” more infuriating than me. If you want to piss me off, just open a bunch of threads and reply to yourself, marking your replies as the solution. @keybreak sometimes sends me links to such threads in PM, probably because he finds it funny how worked up I get over it… I do find it infuriating, especially when people post stupid questions (this is one thing on which I disagree with the forum’s zeitgeist, I do think there exist such things as stupid questions), then answer them themselves (sometimes even incorrectly!) and mark such answers as the solutions. Or even worse, when they mark “thanks, that solved my problem” as the solution! 
That said, if @ricklinux (or anyone else), thinks this is a good use of his time, who am I to say otherwise? He is not hurting me – in fact, I sometimes learn something new from reading his replies, so I benefit from it. More often than not, I am also going to pick the low hanging fruit and help a complete newbie who asks a stupid question (especially if he or she does it in a polite way), simply because I sometimes ask stupid questions myself (I try not to) and I appreciate being told the answer, instead of being told how stupid I was (even though the latter is true).
That was what I did, and the thread @nate was referring to where we were trying to help and after several times of avoiding the question by more than one of us.
These are the threads I’m really talking about.
But that specific thread (the one where the OP was asked to clarify the question but didn’t) sorted itself out. At first, people were trying to guess what the OP meant, then slowly lost interest. In the end, there were even some useful posts in it, despite the OP being uncooperative. So I see no major problem with it.
Some of my interactions may be lengthy but that is because sometimes … i haven’t got a clue what I’m doing! 
I’ve been there a few times, myself. Especially when it comes to Nvidya drivers
Nvidia drivers work good …if you have the right card and non hybrid! 
…and never reboot
I got it! More fun! 
Nvidia drivers work fine. You just have to talk softly, move gently, and avoid startling the poor things.
I’m sorry, but when i see 3rd self-answer in a row from same user, which you have already being pissed off about in the past…It just gets me through the day by seeing another:
I think only small changes are needed to the forum. For example, I think the casual, not necessarily EOS-related conversations will remain in the future because I think that sets EOS apart from other distribution communities.