That comment is, just like the downvotes the question received, precisely the sort of thing that discourages asking honest questions rather than welcoming them. Note that by the way it is written it, too, assumes that it is both obvious and understood that Python's request.get will "send off a request"—instead of merely building a request and returning it to you. Rather than just straightforwardly answering the question (by explaining what this part of the Python' standard library is actually doing—which is the relevant missing piece here, and which no one should be expected to know) the quoted comment ("The question was how to build a URL, not how to send off a request to it") pins the misunderstanding on the questioner by tacitly implying the questioner isn't paying attention to something else entirely different.

The comment, when considered in full and in context, actually has the effect of subtly discouraging/admonishing the questioner (and likeminded people with the same question) for failing to recognize something that is, to the sophomoric Python crowd, obvious and worthy of ridicule—which is what maest's thread was all about, by the way (and almost certainly why it got moderated).