Q:

How to deal with incorrect claims in answers and comments?

I have a situation I'm not quite sure how to deal with.
I am an open-source enthusiast and an author of several open-source libraries and tools. There are few tags on SO on my projects and I gladly consult users there - answer questions, offer advice etc.
I also have to say that some of my tools serve quite advanced use cases. So you actually have to know a great deal to be able to apply them. Normally everything works well because the users usually already have the required level.
Recently, however, I was trying to help a user who was trying to use one of my tools. No matter how hard I tried, I just didn't manage to help him out. He seemed to lack the understanding of the basic concepts of the tools he was trying to use, skipped important instructions, applied them incorrectly and tried completely wrong things - and ultimately blamed the tool for not doing what he wanted. It was a series of questions with lengthy discussions and comments-on-comments^20, I guess you understand what I mean.
Finally I've decided that I just don't have time for this; I've just terminated my efforts. The user eventually figured it out, BUT still blames the tool.
Finally what I have is a bunch of false claims of what my tool is capable of and what not. However you have to know the tool to see that these claims are false. And it's a very niche thing so not too many people with the relevant knowledge come around. An "average" (sorry for the word) reviewer wouldn't see that these comments are false.
Being false, these comments may be misleading for potential new users. They don't provide any constructive criticism whatsoever; it's more like "your tool is not mature enough to do X".
I don't know what to do about this. From one hand I don't really like these claims. From the other hand I don't want to engage the user anymore. I would appreciate the community advice here. Right now I'm just backing off.

A:

I've seen both situations:

The user blames the tool when the user is the problem.
The tool's author insists that the tool is working correctly or is well designed, when it is in fact not working correctly or is badly designed.

Who is correct is a technical matter, and so long as the matter remains technical and there is no violation of the site rules, moderators are not going to step into the dispute.
So what is one to do? The best advice is to explain why the person is wrong, downvote where possible and desirable, and move on.

A:

I am answering my own question here as I believe I have learned quite a few things. From the answers and comments here as well as from the whole situation.

I should not hesitate to close "how to make this work" type of questions as "too broad". Even if I am willing to help and even if I think I know the answer for the whole thing. This is important for the following reasons:

The OP gets correcting feedback that his question is not good enough.
I am probably the only one who is able to answer "the whole thing". Dividing the question into a series of simpler ones will increase the probablity that other people would be able to help as well. Basically, all the parts of the original question are quite common and mainstream and known to many people. It's the combination that makes the target audience quite small.
Closing is not my personal decision, it takes up to five people to close one. It makes it pretty much unlikely that closing will be interpreted as a personal "insult" or "denial of service".
One big question benefits one user, many small questions benefit the community.

I should not engage in lengthy (constructive or not) discussions in comments and answers. Mark question-comments as "this is another question" an move on. This may result in further questions which is altogether more productive.
I should stay constructive, never get personal, whatever it takes. I do not have a goal to "teach" this specific user how to think/work/research/experiment etc. I was not asked to. :)
I should not worry much about "false claims". Most people will recognize the real nature of things and also my effort to help. Those who will not are, probably, in the same category as this user and it does not worth to try to change their mind anyway.
When in doubt, stay calm and move on.

Now for those interested, this story had a continuation.
After I have decided to leave my user alone, I really saw im struggling. He asked a number of further questions (which were getting narrower and narrower) and managed a few steps, but unfortunatelly nor in the right direction. It looked like he really put significant effort in making it work.
Finally, I just could not resist it. I took time and addressed his most critical question. This was, again, a lengthy post with screenshots, code examples, links to working samples etc. AND also built-in "quality gates" like "don't move on until THIS works".
I admit, I did not have high hopes, but it worked. I believe the user carried out the steps with greater care and it looks like it finally worked for him! He managed to run basic examples, tried few things on his own (met new problems on that way), but he clearly has this "Hello, World!" past him.
He asked new questions but at least one of them is now closed as "too broad". And having learned the things I learned, I am trying to restructure the incoming questions and comments so that we get small easy-to handle questions where I am not the only source of wisdom (or lack thereof).
Nor sure if this is appropriate here, but I would like to thank you, the people, who help me to learn how to handle this situation. I will benefit from this lesson in the future.

UPDATE
Right after I've written this "happy end" post, the user has found out that his "too broad" question was closed. He now:

accused me of being short-tempered
claimed that he has provided "invaluable feedback" for me to fix things and I was not grateful for that
removed his aggressive comments later on
added an update to his post, with an explicit purpose to defame the project as "not having an adequate documentation"
and was still asking me to help to resolve things.

So, sorry, this is not a happy end. This is a big disappointment and a good lesson for me.
Now I will have to do two things:

Add another lesson to the list above: If my gut feeling says that I'm probably trying to help the wrong person, I better listen to it.
Practice what I've learned. Stay constructive. Disengage. Flag if appropriate. Forget and move on.

Sincerely yours,

A:

As someone who hasn't been in the same situation as you, but has read plenty of painfully incorrect claims on the internet - don't stress about it too much, because any reasonably interested reader can usually tell who's acting willfully ignorant and who's making sense in an internet discussion. All you can/should reasonably do in this situation is calmly reassert the truth of the matter and trust that clear heads will prevail. There's no good to come with debating/arguing with someone who's clearly not interested in genuine help.

