User blog comment:Slyst/Helping out on Central/@comment-26843745-20160227074339/@comment-25508186-20160227135546

Explaining is what you would do when you want to help the user, but not have them shut down their thinking caps. Explaining, and eventually doing it for them, can be considered walking them through the issue; even though they themselves don't do anything, they will at least why the issue occurred in the first place and what they should do, should the issue arise again.

Posting a link to the diff on the other hand is not very helpful, especially in cases when the user is unaware of what even happened - which is why they asked for help in the first place. It is likely to work when both of you know what's going on, but might fail miserably if the user doesn't. If it needs to be served on a silver platter, it's not help!