You’re posting full code and a description of what’s going wrong, you’re mentioning things you tried, and you’re doing it in complete sentences. For bonus credit, you’re not insulting anybody or starting pointless arguments. Your status here is A-OK. 
I like to think that the way the developer part of the forum works is that we all answer questions just up to our own abilities. People like me answer the basic syntax-error stuff, people with a bit more experience answer about the intricacies of things like tables and indexed text, and then if there’s a really esoteric question, an Inform maintainer like emshort or zarf steps in. Without the “silly” questions, the question-economy collapses!
Anyway, I frequently learn things by reading the answers to people’s questions even when they thought they were silly, and it’s not like the forums here are that high-volume. So, no worries.