Eh, as long as you take a bit of care to make the question come across as genuine and not as snark or feigning lack of knowledge to draw out a comment to be hostile to (which people here are often primed to interpret things as), I think you'll generally either get a useful response and upvotes or no response.
Working around other people's hangups is a real pain, but that's basically what a large portion of participating in a pseudo-anonymous internet forum is about, unfortunately.