Why aren't my questions being answered?

A common complaint

You: I've come to the forums looking for information. I've asked a question, but no one is posting the exact answer to it. They're giving me links to pages that has information I didn't ask for, or telling me to do my own research. I mean, this is a forum, how about you actually help me?

Me: Yes, I know you came to the forums looking for information, but spudguns can be (and are) dangerous, and a big part of what we try to do on this site is...

Train people to think more independently.

This is so they are able to make intelligent decisions when building a spudgun without needing to run to the forum to ask about it.

If we drop only the information you specifically WANT on your lap, this doesn't supply you with everything you NEED - because you probably don't know what you need to know. As each cannon, builder and method is different, we won't know what you need to know either.

If you do your own research, you'll find a lot of this other information that you NEED while searching for what you WANT.
Ergo, by doing your own research, you become more independent. This is important for safety. If you rely on us to tell you about something, then you might do action X without realising it's unsafe. If you're able to think independently and scientifically, you'll know without having to be told - hence, making things safer.

Next, you're forgetting...

We're human too (well, most of us).

You might well find our apparent unwillingness to be free with information irritating. Imagine our point of view, given that we get people coming through on a regular basis who won't do their own research - we get pretty annoyed when every second newbie asks the same question as the one two before them and is unprepared to read anything but what has been posted in threads they have started.

Imagine if everyone here was unwilling to do their own research and didn't demonstrate independent thinking. We'd have a total mess, several injured/dead members and no forum at all.

Thirdly, you might be lucky, but....

We don't have days full of free time.

We don't live to serve the forum newcomers with all the information they want. We simply do not have the time to hang around typing out a full post to every answer, so to save our time, we give links to older topics which asked similar questions, outside websites - and try to get you thinking more independently so that you need to ask less questions, saving our time further.

Lastly...

It makes you look good to do your own research!

Those people we can eventually cajole into doing some research are the normal crowd, so that's our benchmark. Considering that, if a newbie comes through having done their research, they immediately get moved up a dozen levels in our estimation. Someone we can get to do their research soon after arriving also gets a boost.

However, inversely, someone we can't coax into reading for themselves gets dropped a few rungs.

Conclusion

If you've bothered to read this, that's a start - reading this article might not be what you asked for, but it tells you why we don't spoonfeed you with every tidbit of information you might ask for.

So, there are our reasons. I hope that's explained this to you.
NOW GO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, AND STOP BEING SO LAZY!