<p>I agree in broad terms. </p>

<p>In essence, don't apologise for asking questions on a forum: that's what it's for! </p>

<p>However, as @Gung also emphasises, it is very difficult to stop these apologies being added in the first place. </p>

<p>Apologies are given for understandable reasons: an attempt at politeness, embarrassment, confusion, unwillingness to look ignorant or stupid, and so forth. And if you turn it round, is it more or less irritating to see questions posted without apologies that should not have been posted because they are lazy attempts to get other people to do the work, show no research effort or attempt to explain a problem clearly, or are inappropriate any way? </p>

<p>I can't see that we can get more people to read advice in the Help Center before posting. For every person cautious enough to read all the advice first, it seems that there are several who just post any way. We don't have a futuristic technology that would prevent people from posting until they understood the precise goals and style of the forum, and if we did, the world would be a more awful place, as many science fiction stories underline. </p>

<p>My solution, in a word, is just <strong>editing</strong>. I often edit out, or at least edit down, these apologies as irrelevant to the technical question being asked and of no real use or interest to other readers. They join in oblivion pleas of urgency or desperation and other irrelevant stuff. If I edited your post and you are reading this, know that I was just trying to improve your question and make it easier for others to read, to grasp your question and to give you a good answer. </p>
