For some time now I've been noticing a pattern: when a question about a relatively broad subject gives a specific example of the subject, nearly all its answers will be about the example rather than about the subject it is an example of.
I've seen it on the main site and in meta. It applies to questions asked by a variety of different people, and there doesn't seem to be any tendency for it to occur in any particular tag group more than in others. The habit of answering the example rather than the subject is, likewise, not confined to any small number of particular individuals. It's just a pattern of citizen behavior on the site.
It's gotten to the point where I'm loathe to provide examples of any sort--or even to say what it is that prompted me to ask the question--even though I think this reduces the quality of my questions, because I know it's likely to reduce the number of useful answers.
What can we do about this, as both askers and answerers of questions?