"George,
Perhaps you could provide specific examples of where one was shouted down for asking questions. This is not to say this hasn't happened, but in my experience it usually follows this pattern or something related:
1) Person A posts pics of something or makes a comments about a hole or course or whatever.
2) Person B asks a question.
3) Person A answers question.
4) Person B asks a follow-up question and either directly or in-directly implies that the initial answer wasn't good enough.
5) Person A then re-answers question and attempts to explain answer more completly.
6) Person B once again is not satisified with answer and continues to Badger Person A for a "better answer".
7) Person A then goes on the defensive and suggests person B needs to play the course or see it for themselves so they could better understand the answer.
8 ) Person B then accuses Person A of dodging the question and continues to berate Person A
9) Person A then discontinues conversation.
10) Person B continues the attack on Person A and accuses Person A of not wanting to have "real dialogue" or something similar.
IMO, in this particular scenario when someone gets shouted down, its often because Person B is not interested in a getting a real answer but they have an agenda and resort to using whatever trick they can to claim A is not "engaged in having real conversation"."
Kalen:
Your above looks like a pretty fine multiple iteration of the kind of scenarios on here that a lot of us have been guilty of in the past. However, you forgot to add the last part of these kinds of scenarios (even though it has now been added by someone else) that generally involve some on here trying to figure out who exactly you are referring to and even claiming that you are implicitly identifying someone who they claim you are calling as asshole even if you did not identify anyone or even refer to anyone as an asshole (but maybe you did---I can't bother to go back through this thread to check that part out).
Not to even mention these kinds of things can and do eventually devolve down to some degree of an argument about what does and what does not constitute a conversation or a discussion or at least a "productive" one.