I've just recently tried to join in on a few questions on this site after having a pleasant experience on a few other Stack Exchange sites, and I'm noticing an unpleasant reaction to questions that are still on-topic and answerable, including one of my own.
For example, I asked this question a while back to identify a character from Megaman X5's opening stage. The first and only comment back was the following:
What makes you think there's any lore at all behind it? The Mega Man games are not known for their deep story and motivation.
I maintain this was false and voiced my objection in the comments, but I accept that this objection can be raised. Fair enough.
I've also seen this kind of behavior on other questions, some good questions and some bad. Over the last month I've seen objecting comments on the following:
Is there any reason why Crash has to destroy all those boxes?
Are we honestly trying to make sense of a platformer with barely a nod to story? Seriously?
What game is this symbol from?
How do you know it was from a game?
I dunno if this really hits our exception for gaming identification; you think you saw it in a game, but we have nothing but your memory to go off of.
@GGMG No, it's a screenshot from a video with an element the asker thinks is from a game. It...sorta meets our criteria, and sorta doesn't. As is, we're straying towards a much stricter interpretation than before
I kind of just take it as a given that if there's a question that bears even a slight chance of not being answerable, somebody will take to the comments and disparage the questioner for asking or cast doubt on the asker's intentions.
I feel these comments harm Arqade for several reasons:
1.) They aren't constructive.
The site already has several built-in methods to shut down a question if it's off topic or not up to snuff. Leaving a belligerent comment doesn't add anything to the question or the answer at best and creates an unnecessarily hostile environment for the asker at worst.
2.) They shut down potential answers
The ID question above functioned exactly how identification questions are supposed to work, even in their narrow scope. Somebody had a tangible element from a game that they recognized but couldn't be image searched, they posted the artifact, somebody else who recognized the artifact and gave the game it came from, and the answer was accepted. Bonus points for sparking an interesting exchange on why the image was on the shirt in the first place.
The comments on the question demanding how the asker could be positive that they really, truly recognized this image did nothing except get in the way of procuring a perfectly valid answer. Same for the other two questions, if they ever do receive valid answers.
3.) You're allowed to answer that there is no good answer to the question
These comments, cleaned up and made a little nicer, could be answers. Sometimes there is no lore explanation for this thing or that, or there's a strong reason to believe some image is not from a game. At which point they receive the proper corrections and discussion they deserve.
A comment of this form is the worst of both worlds. They assert an answer to the question but avoid all of the checks and balances to official answers and aren't preserved as they should be.