Is it worth it to give a ready-made solution instead of useful instructions?

Question

Toaster

The problems that people address on the Q[ uestion ]&A[ nswer ] forums can be conditionally (and not strictly) divided into practical and theoretical: some require the solution of some specific problem, in the case of others, sometimes even some abstract reasoning. Some appeared in the course of a person's resolution of specific difficulties that arose before him, while others may be based on ordinary interest.
People who ask the forum audience for help with practical problems have different attitudes towards this very audience, and the idea of ​​Q&A in general, differently imagine what they will get as a result. Some believe that the wording of the question should be made as general as possible so that its hypothetical solution is useful not only for the questioner, but also for others; not only in solving a specific problem, but also in relation to a whole class of problems. Others use the forum as a magic 8 ball : as problems come up, they throw them here and hope for a solution, which sometimes may not be.
Bottom line: when deciding to help the person who asked the question, you have a huge number of options for exactly how you can do it. Among other things, all these options differ from each other in the amount of time that both parties had to spend to jointly solve the problem. You can hint to the person that the solution to the problem is easy to find on your own, or you can just give out a ready-made solution. If the person agrees and solves the problem himself, then we can assume that you spent 0% to solve the problem, and the person spent 100% of the time spent on solving the problem. If you give a ready-made solution, then in this case all of you are 100%, a person receives an answer to his question without spending a second of his time, 0%. Tips, discussions, exchange of experience, disputes, instructions, instructions - in such a system, all this lies somewhere in the range from 0 to 100,
When you answer the question, do details matter to you, such as: the relationship of a person to the audience, the obvious unwillingness of a person to spend his time on independent research, or vice versa - the willingness to spend as much time as needed?
Do factors such as the age of the asker, gender, social status, etc., influence your desire to help?
Do you think that a question has no value if the answer to it can be found in a search engine? Do you think such questions deserve deletion?
What are the pros and cons of giving a ready-made solution to the problem? to give useful instructions, links to training materials or just to the first articles from the search engine that come across?

Answer 1

Because I often answer on the toaster, I will describe my vision of the questions:

1. I never give a solution myself, unless the question requires very narrow knowledge that cannot be found on the Internet in a minute. If the question is from the category of "think", then there is no choice - I try to think and answer myself.
   
2. It follows from the first point that if I know that a question can be answered on the Internet without much effort, then I send a person to Google with a hint of what keywords he needs. This is faster for me and, most importantly, much more useful for the questioner to find the solution himself.
   
3. Different properties of the authors of the question do not play a role, I am as fair as possible. Although from the question it is already clear who is what.