Help the newbies grow

This is not a question, just an opinion I'd like to share.

I recently observed a new contributor that asked perfectly legitimate questions but lacked the expertise to realize that they were nearly duplicates (maybe this question itself is...).

They were not really because dupes answered about what "mechanism" made some code valid or not, but the op was interested in the rationale. But whatever...

OP add a few helpful comments and their questions were closed as duplicate. Why not.

But they also got lots of downvotes.

This user had the guts to ask questions to genuinely understand something and get better insight about some technology, an always legit motivation that must be encouraged. These questions may not have met Stack Overflow quality standards, but instead of advice to improve their questions or do better searches beforehand, they got these downvotes. Closing their questions might suffice to maintain Stack Overflow's quality, IMHO.

But if newbies are treated like this, how will they become tomorrow’s experts? Want more AI slop? This is how.

For you newbies, grit your teeth, keep learning, and help others when ready.