You’re well-familiar with HN’s tendency to take the dry-literal interpretation path, I see :) It’s difficult to build productive conversation out of sarcasm and rhetoric, and the guidelines ask us to choose the most good-faith interpretation rather than the most obvious one.
Answering a question with a question is a time honored tradition. Just because it's rhetorical doesn't mean it was negative. If the person I responded to answered those questions for themselves, then it might lead them to realize how their question totally missed the point of the post they responded to. Teach a person to fish blah blah.
Context is key. It was quite obvious from the original post wanting to own shares specifically for what that would entitle them. Following that up with "don't you mean short it?" shows that the original point of the post was not understood. However, if you forget the above and focus on the one post, you lose site of the conversation.
Given that you have to infer meaning from context (which can be subjective; in this case, are you being snarky or not? (Not so, but there is ambiguity)), it is better to assume good faith in the question and respond directly. It lacks sophistication, but minimizes cross-talk as much as is feasible.
