Read the title. Read the OP. Now I've got this song stuck in my head:
Ugh
Great work.
I just finished a stint in a major area ER, and I think some of the lessons are pretty relevant to the conversation at hand. First off, people can be dumb as heck, and it's not limited to our hobby. Stupidity is a force of nature, plan on it happening repeatedly. Whether people are setting up a tank or working on a roof, they're going to do something stupid, they're going to hurt something, and they'll wind up in your care because of it.
To that end, I've always found threads like this to be
extremely counter productive. People sometimes forget that the goal should never be to simply be right, but to help the other person. Threads like this always reek of 'told you so' and a sense of self superiority that helps no one, and comes across as extremely off-putting to people who might be in need of help.
Some threads ARE frustrating, and I assure you that everyone who sticks to the hobby long enough to acquire a large knowledge base has the same feelings. People are bullheaded, impulsive, and often times plain ignorant of the endeavors they undertake; they're also human at the end of the day. You should always try to keep that in mind when you come across threads like you mention. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. But you also shouldn't hit the horse because he's won't drink. Someday he's going to get thirsty, and he'll remember that.