| Author |
Some thoughts on asking questions the right way |
MaThIbUs
Joined: May 17, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Belgium
PM, WWW
|
edit: respect the forum rules
As a person who mostly participates here in the question-answering capacity, rather than as one who asks, I feel like I'm not always getting the kind of treatment I think I deserve. This doesn't mean people have been deliberately rude or anything. Simply that I feel like some need to think more about the relationship between themselves and the people whose assistance they are requesting.
This is something I've been mulling over a lot lately, particularly in light of a number of recent threads I've been involved in. Now importantly, I don't want any individual to feel that they are being singled out for abuse. These are issues I feel are important for EVERYONE to bear in mind. And while you may think "Hey, he's talking about me!!!" in all probability, there are others who are committing/have committed the same "misdemeanors". I think that addressing these issues makes for a stronger community, and a better venue for receiving assistance. And if nothing else, it'll keep me around trying to help.
Here are my key thoughts:
Write intelligibly
When you ask a question, take the time to write a properly formed sentence. If you can't be bothered to take the time to ask the question clearly, why should others waste time on you to answer? You do yourself a disservice by omitting capitalization, punctuation, or anything else that might assist in comprehension. I, for one, WANT to help...but if I'm knocking my head against a wall, that's just too much effort.
Keep the conversation ON THE BOARD
Don't e-mail anyone on this board without asking first. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten e-mails from people in response to a post. My e-mail is for my friends, my business and the 37,000 companies that spam me each day. If it's necessary to e-mail anyone (e.g., to send a .php file), first ask if it's OK. No one should assume that just because a person assists you on the board, that person wants to be bothered in their inbox. More importantly, when a thread leaves the board, you lose the participation of others in the community who might help you, and the community loses the most important part of the thread: the resolution. Which leads to the next point:
Always resolve your thread, if possible
If you find an answer to your problem, return to your post and explain the solution. If someone else solves it, return and let everyone know that it worked. The whole point of a community board is to provide answers to everyone in the community. If someone else comes here in a day, a month or a year searching for the answer to the same question, they'll find it in the resolved thread. Or they'll find stumps of conversations. Either way, they'll get a pretty good measure of what kind of community we have here.
Thank people
If a person helps you repair your car for no charge, you'd say "thank you," right? Shouldn't you do the same here? This is elementary courtesy. Besides, as mentioned above, it lets people know whether the solution was correct. And it wouldn't hurt to thank people even if the solution doesn't work. At least they tried. In any event, when a person thanks me for my assistance, I'm more likely to assist that person again in the future.
The reason for this is legibility. We want to help you. That's why we're here (no pun intended). But it's a pain in the keester to try to read long blocks of code without formatting. If your code is difficult to read because you've neglected simple formatting, we might just stumble on to the next post.
Try searching the forum to see if your question has already been asked
The vast majority of questions we are asked have been asked and answered many times. This gets a little tedious. I, for one, don't mind answering the same old question again...but it's nice to know that you at least tried to help yourself.
Don't hijack other people's threads...or even your own
Most people answering questions don't want to have to read a novel in order to help you. If you attach your question to an old thread, or a thread on an unrelated topic (even if you were the originator of that thread) many people will quite understandably decide that it's too much work to get up to speed with your question and simply pass you by. In general, the idea of one person, one question, one thread is a good idea for all concerned.
Title your thread descriptively
Don't know why this one didn't occur to me before, since it's such a common problem. It may seem like "HEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!" and "BIG PROBLEM!" are great ways to attract attention, but they are often counter-productive. Many people here will scan over headlines to see if the problem described is something they know about. If they don't see something familiar, they'll keep right on going. A short description of the nature of your problem is always the best way to get the help you need.
There are probably other things, but those are the ones at the top of my noggin. Hopefully, people will have some feedback on these thoughts, and maybe other ideas to add.
Respect the forum rules
A lot of people seem not to have read the Esato forum rules. This thread should not exist, and it wouldn't if everybody respected these rules.
Here's a part about the moderators, taken from the Esato forum rules.
There are moderators. All over 7 feet tall. All over 17 stone. All trained athletes with bulging muscles and hair trigger reflexes. Each moderator is equipped with two low slung colt 45's, night vision glasses and armour piercing tracer shells. But they are kindly people. Anyone can call on a moderator to help out. If you have a complaint, email the webmaster. If you have a suggestion to improve the site, email the webmaster.
As you can see, the Esato forum rules! 
original version found at FlashMXfiles
_________________
[ This Message was edited by: MaThIbUs on 2003-12-31 13:52 ] | |
|
masseur
Joined: Jan 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Sydney, London
PM |
Its funny, I have seen that text a few times, e.g. here and often thought about posting that myself 
it says alot of the right things, some of which correspond with the Esato rules...
|
MaThIbUs
Joined: May 17, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Belgium
PM, WWW
|
Quote:
|
On 2003-12-30 17:05:05, masseur wrote:
Its funny, I have seen that text a few times, e.g. here |
|
Guess where I got it from! 
_________________
[ This Message was edited by: MaThIbUs on 2003-12-30 16:07 ] |
Jim
Joined: Jan 20, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Belgium
PM |
Quote:
| Here are my key thoughts: |
|
, just kidding, excellent post |
stewie
Joined: Nov 23, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Croatia
PM |
I agree with you guys and I support you 100%.
[addsig] |
Cycovision
Joined: Nov 30, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: England
PM, WWW
|
Yeah, good points. It would certainly make forum life easier (forum life? Bit of a contradiction there I think!)
Anyway, you know what I mean |
moodswinger
Joined: Dec 10, 2001
Posts: 78
From: New York, USA
PM |
Whilst I completely agree with your post, I also have to notice that quoting the source also belongs in common courtesy that you hold so dear.
Cheers! |
Universal Exports
Joined: Mar 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Sweden
PM, WWW
|
Nice too see it here too.
"The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success."
-Eliot Carver |
CrackerJack
Joined: Apr 28, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: NE of Borneo to the NE of US
PM |
A very nice wake-up call. Let's hope that everybody gets to read this thread and assimilate it.
[ This Message was edited by: CrackerJack on 2003-12-30 16:56 ] |
701
Joined: Nov 26, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Romania
PM, WWW
|
@CrackerJack: Yeah, sure. I really don`t bet on this one.This should b done a sticky or sent to each and every member thru email (although Mathibus doesn't agree on this one  ) |
CrackerJack
Joined: Apr 28, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: NE of Borneo to the NE of US
PM |
Sad, but true.  |
Vlammetje
Joined: Mar 01, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Den Haag
PM, WWW
|
100% in agreement with the post (even if it's not an original )
Especially the part of unsolicited emails......
In fact, at one point i received 40 emails from unknown (to me anyway) Esato members per day (!!!) which after a week led me to hide my email address from the board.
Curiously this is the only board where I ever had that problem. What is that??
Good reminder for everyone.
|
MaThIbUs
Joined: May 17, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Belgium
PM, WWW
|
Quote:
| On 2003-12-30 17:09:42, Jim wrote:
Quote:
| Here are my key thoughts: |
|
, just kidding, excellent post
|
|
Quote:
|
On 2003-12-30 17:20:43, Cycovision wrote:
Yeah, good points. It would certainly make forum life easier (forum life? Bit of a contradiction there I think!)
Anyway, you know what I mean
|
|
Quote:
| On 2003-12-30 17:28:29, moodswinger wrote:
Whilst I completely agree with your post, I also have to notice that quoting the source also belongs in common courtesy that you hold so dear. |
|
You're so right! I updated the post.
Quote:
| On 2003-12-31 04:15:05, 701 wrote:
@CrackerJack: Yeah, sure. I really don`t bet on this one.This should b done a sticky or sent to each and every member thru email (although Mathibus doesn't agree on this one ) |
|
 This is getting complicated...
It could be made a sticky, but I don't think mailing it to everybody who registered at the Esato forums is a good thing. Remember, there are lots of users out there who have just registered an account, but never posted nor visited Esato afterwards.
Also read "How to ask questions the smart way" by Eric Steven Raymond and Rick Moen
_________________
[ This Message was edited by: MaThIbUs on 2003-12-31 13:43 ] | |
|
Access the forum with a mobile phone via esato.mobi
|
Posted: 2003-12-30 16:56
