How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

22 Jun 25

paritoshshah

05 Mar 23

hideo is

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

Translations: Brazilo-Portuguese Chinese (Traditional) Czech Dutch Estonian French Georgian German Greek Hindi Hungarian Indonesion Japanese Lithuanian Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Ukrainian Uzbek If you want…

05 Feb 19

flyingpudding

In the world of hackers, the kind of answers you get to your technical questions depends as much on the way you ask the questions as on the difficulty of developing the answer. This guide will teach you how to ask questions in a way more likely to get you a satisfactory answer.

Now that use of open source has become widespread, you can often get as good answers from other, more experienced users as from hackers. This is a Good Thing; users tend to be just a little bit more tolerant of the kind of failures newbies often have. Still, treating experienced users like hackers in the ways we recommend here will generally be the most effective way to get useful answers out of them, too.

web communication learning opensource

25 Jul 18

amir tal

network mail test tool management configuration server software howto questions help communication geek programming

07 May 18

Peter Baumgartner

stackOverflow tutorial question

18 Jun 17

vitaliysavkin

14 Apr 17

zarazum

What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions. People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer.
We like answering questions for people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers.
Search, then ask on Stack Exchange

1 more annotation...

01 Apr 17

Lou Li

We like answering questions for people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers.
Do not expect to be able to solve a complicated problem with a few seconds of Googling.
Don't shotgun-blast all the available help channels at once, that's like yelling and irritates people. Step through them softly.
One good convention for subject headers, used by many tech support organizations, is “object - deviation”. The “object” part specifies what thing or group of things is having a problem, and the “deviation” part describes the deviation from expected behavior.
If you can't be bothered to do that, we can't be bothered to pay attention.
Data should be included as-is, so respondents can have confidence that they are seeing what you saw.
Play it so the maintainers will want to apologize to you if the bug is real, rather than so that you will owe them an apology if you have messed up.
The smaller your minimal test case is, the better
It is OK to ask for hints, but not for entire solutions.
he person who sent it thinks you should have Searched The Fucking Web.
(If this puzzles you, remember that we value a question by what it teaches us.)
Answering one good question is like feeding a hungry person one meal, but teaching them research skills by example is showing them how to grow food for a lifetime.

10 more annotations...

01 Jan 17

Yee Sian Ng

Many project websites link to this document in their sections on how to get help. That's fine, it's the use we intended — but if you are a webmaster creating such a link for your project page, please display prominently near the link notice that we …

IFTTT Pocket

11 Oct 16

Fred Sheahan

How to navigate posting in a programming forum

mindset communication

23 Sep 16

liuhaodong

We have learned the hard way that without such a notice, we will repeatedly be pestered by idiots who think having published this document makes it our job to solve all the world's technical problems.

15 Jul 16

ruochenchen

Pocket instapaper

07 Sep 15

chinesejapanese

how to ask question tutorial forum computer self help hacking delicious import from ImportDelicious 2016 05 22

25 Aug 15

FR Chalaoux

Informatics

08 Jul 15

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way via Instapaper http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

ifttt pinboard

13 Apr 15

Edmond Lau

questions reference communication

15 Mar 15

04 Jan 15

albertnetymk

essay

03 Dec 14

N A

Delicious communication support helpdesk question howto tutorial reference tips help

02 Sep 14

Patrick Mooney

howto questions reference help geek communication programming writing critical_thinking

06 Feb 14

John Love

howto questions reference geek help communication

26 Jan 14

Joelle Nebbe-Mornod

"When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done these things first; this will help establish that you're not being a lazy sponge and wasting people's time. Better yet, display what you have learned from doing these things. We like answering questions for people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers."

howto questions geek

01 Jan 14

cao yujian

linux

20 Dec 13

gbradz

the kind of attitude that leads to competence — alert, thoughtful, observant, willing to be an active partner in developing a solution
RTFM and STFW

07 Dec 13

Valent Turkovic

smart question questions

21 Oct 13

Franck MIKULECZ

Asking good questions in the right way !

questions help forums

31 Aug 13

Michael Bolanos

30 Jul 13

emroldan

How to ask questions, the smart way

raymond questions howto

14 Jul 13

paul rayner

Forum

15 Jun 13

midmarketplace_

howto questions reference help

05 Jun 13

Sergey Sergeev

Почти правила поведения в интернетах. Как правильно задавать вопросы: http://t.co/zRKGJMM5

Twitter ReadLater

08 May 13

deliruby

_read solution

18 Dec 12

an88zi

questions help reference communication FAQ geek how-to

14 Nov 12

Arrix Z

question ask

10 Oct 12

Víctor González Pacheco

community tutorial geek help communication programming tips reference questions howto

25 Sep 12

James Jordan

questions ask howto

23 Aug 12

Serban Andreescu

how to ask question smart comunication personal development articles

20 Aug 12

Gaurav Sharma

Instead, present the background facts and your question as clearly as you can. That is a better way to position yourself than by grovelling.
Don't waste your time, or ours, on crude primate politics
If you feel you do have a newbie question, just go there. But don't grovel there either.

1 more annotation...

01 Aug 12

Graham Perrin

https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/error-message-when-booting-usb_err_timeout-ignored.63986/post-371519

2004 2012 2012-08 2012-08-01

05 Jul 12

Ashen Grey

howto questions ask

04 Jul 12

Gleb Svechnikov

smart question

25 Jun 12

karlosmid

testing

20 Jun 12

Peter Bainbridge

Links Personal Funny Sites

25 May 12

bibliovorous

Delicious

16 May 12

Andy Palmer

communication howto

10 May 12

J. Felix Ontañón

internet

21 Apr 12

Phil Scrace

Soft Skills

16 Apr 12

Dale Pike

question questions reference communication howto

04 Mar 12

contempt contempt

27 Feb 12

Kyle Freeman

07 Feb 12

Greg Hetherington

_best_practice

16 Nov 11

ousiotic

howto questions ask help

06 Oct 11

Will Stufflebeam

28 Sep 11

Rami Sedhom

HowTo reference tips writing faq productivity personal smart question

21 Sep 11

Ajit Eapen

cyberculture tips

ajiteapen

cyberculture tips

20 Aug 11

Rollo May

视听设备

15 Aug 11

Dane Eastlick

cad

13 Aug 11

howto reference help geek communication ask

11 Aug 11

"In the world of hackers, the kind of answers you get to your technical questions depends as much on the way you ask the questions as on the difficulty of developing the answer. This guide will teach you how to ask questions in a way more likely to get you a satisfactory answer.

"

03 Aug 11

Matthew Israelsohn

"How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"

question+answer

28 Jul 11

Mark Book

query question smart reference programming help geek communication

01 Jul 11

Zoran Regvart

In the world of hackers, the kind of answers you get to your technical questions depends as much on the way you ask the questions as on the difficulty of developing the answer. This guide will teach you how to ask questions in a way more likely to get you a satisfactory answer.

howto questions help geek communication

29 Jun 11

Sascha K

http://t.co/X1MxeqP is ja essentielle Medienkompentenz und sollte Grundschullehrstoff sein. Aber mich fragt ja keiner.

15 Jun 11

venkat koyagura

28 May 11

Dewane Woodley

27 May 11

Leorg Gnon

Many project websites link to this document in their sections on how to get help . ...... for help with semantically-null questions like Can anyone help me? ..... Stupid: I'm having problems with my motherboard. Can anybody help? ...

23 May 11

Peeyoosh Sangolekar

howto questions reference geek programming ask

20 May 11

Jonathan Duce

howto reference programming

10 May 11

Vimalanandan S

TipsnTricks

06 May 11

D C

howto geek reference ask asking question amazing

02 May 11

Jeff Brazee

How to ask smart questions (technically oriented).

27 Apr 11

Sunny Jackson

19 Apr 11

Alexander Phoenix

ia mustread

21 Mar 11

yaakovf

reference Community documentation Forum Internet Links linux productivity Quick_Answers Reading software tips tutorials

01 Mar 11

Yuvaraj L

smart tips questions

27 Feb 11

AndrewCarle

howto questions programming geek communication ask esr raymond hackers culture

24 Feb 11

Joe Weinmunson

techwriting

15 Feb 11

phuongcm88

programming research

25 Jan 11

Rebecca Martin

how to ask smart questions

22 Jan 11

RH W

relationships advice

28 Dec 10

Feng Jiang

21 Dec 10

Ed Geek

geek howto

07 Dec 10

question report questions bug programming ask education reference geek help howto communication

28 Nov 10

Iain Wyatt

questions

26 Nov 10

Jacob Cheng

article programming

26 Oct 10

Michael Samuelson

howto questions reference tips programming communication

04 Oct 10

romario333

- Try to find an answer by searching the archives of the forum you plan to post to.
- Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
- Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
- Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
- Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
- Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
- If you're a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code.
Try to find an answer by searching the archives of the forum you plan to post to.
When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done these things first; this will help establish that you're not being a lazy sponge and wasting people's time.
In fact, it's a very good idea to do a keyword search for words relating to your problem on the newsgroup or mailing list archives before you post. It may find you an answer, and if not it will help you formulate a better question.
Read some of the back traffic before posting so you'll get a feel for how things are done there.
There is an increasing tendency for projects to do user support over a Web forum or IRC channel, with e-mail reserved more for development traffic. So look for those channels first when seeking project-specific help.
One good convention for subject headers, used by many tech support organizations, is “object - deviation”. The “object” part specifies what thing or group of things is having a problem, and the “deviation” part describes the deviation from expected behavior.
Send plain text mail, not HTML.
Don't send e-mail in which entire paragraphs are single multiply-wrapped lines. (This makes it too difficult to reply to just part of the message.) Assume that your respondents will be reading mail on 80-character-wide text displays and set your line wrap accordingly, to something less than 80.
Describe the symptoms of your problem or bug carefully and clearly.
Describe the environment in which it occurs
Describe the research you did to try and understand the problem before you asked the question.
Describe the diagnostic steps you took to try and pin down the problem yourself before you asked the question.
It's not useful to tell hackers what you think is causing your problem.
Often, people who need technical help have a high-level goal in mind and get stuck on what they think is one particular path towards the goal. They come for help with the step, but don't realize that the path is wrong. It can take substantial effort to get past this.
Send a note after the problem has been solved to all who helped you; let them know how it came out and thank them again for their help. If the problem attracted general interest in a mailing list or newsgroup, it's appropriate to post the followup there.
Besides being courteous and informative, this sort of followup will help others searching the archive of the mailing-list/newsgroup/forum to know exactly which solution helped you and thus may also help them.