Describe the problem's symptoms, not your guesses

It's not useful to tell folks what you think is causing your problem. (If your diagnostic theories were such hot stuff, would you be consulting others for help?) So, make sure you're telling them the raw symptoms of what goes wrong, rather than your interpretations and theories. Let them do the interpretation and diagnosis. If you feel it's important to state your guess, clearly label it as such and describe why that answer isn't working for you.

Describe your problem's symptoms in chronological order

The clues most useful in figuring out something that went wrong often lie in the events immediately prior. So, your account should describe precisely what you did leading up to the blowup. If your account ends up being long (more than about four paragraphs), it might be useful to succinctly state the problem up top, then follow with the chronological tale. That way, slingers will know what to watch for in reading your account.

Describe the goal, not the step.

If you are trying to find out how to do something, begin by describing the goal. Only then describe the particular step towards it that you are blocked on.

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.

Don't ask people to reply by private e-mail

Most folks believe solving problems should be a public, transparent process during which a first try at an answer can and should be corrected if someone more knowledgeable notices that it is incomplete or incorrect. Also, helpers get some of their reward for being respondents from being seen to be competent and knowledgeable by their peers. When you ask for a private reply, you are disrupting both the process and the reward. Don't do this. It's the respondent's choice whether to reply privately, and if he does, it's usually because he thinks the question is too ill-formed or obvious to be interesting to others.

Be explicit about your question

Open-ended questions tend to be perceived as open-ended time sinks. Those people most likely to be able to give you a useful answer are also the busiest people (if only because they take on the most work themselves). People like that are allergic to open-ended time sinks, thus they tend to be allergic to open-ended questions. You are more likely to get a useful response if you are explicit about what you want respondents to do. This will focus their effort and implicitly, and put an upper bound on the time and energy a respondent must allocate to helping you. This is good.

To understand the world the experts live in, think of expertise as an abundant resource and time to respond as a scarce one. The less of a time commitment you implicitly ask for, the more likely you are to get an answer from someone really good and really busy. So, it is useful to frame your question to minimize the time commitment required for an expert to field it, but this is often not the same thing as simplifying the question.

Don't post homework questions

Most folks are good at spotting homework questions; most of us have done them ourselves. Those questions are for you to work out, so that you will learn from the experience. It is OK to ask for hints, but not for entire solutions.

Prune pointless queries

Resist the temptation to close your request for help with semantically-null questions like "Can anyone help me?" or "Is there an answer?" First: if you've written your problem description halfway competently, such tacked-on questions are at best superfluous. Second: because they are superfluous, folks find them annoying and are likely to return logically impeccable but dismissive answers like "Yes, you can be helped" and "No, there is no help for you." In general, asking yes-or-no questions is a good thing to avoid unless you want a yes-or-no answer.

Don't flag your question as "Urgent", even if it is for you

That's your problem, not ours. Claiming urgency is very likely to be counter-productive: most folks will simply ignore such messages as rude and selfish attempts to elicit immediate and special attention. If you find this mysterious, re-read the rest of this how-to repeatedly until you understand it posting anything at all.

Courtesy never hurts, and sometimes helps

Be courteous. Use "Please" and "Thanks for your attention" or "Thanks for your consideration". Make it clear you appreciate the time people spend helping you for free.

To be honest, this isn't as important as (and cannot substitute for) being grammatical, clear, precise and descriptive, avoiding proprietary formats etc.; folks in general would rather get somewhat brusque but technically sharp dialogue than polite vagueness. (If this puzzles you, remember that we value a question by what it teaches us.)

However, if you've got your technical ducks in a row, politeness does increase your chances of getting a useful answer.)

Follow up with a brief note on the solution

Post a follow up 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 forum, it's appropriate to post the followup there. Optimally, the reply should be to the thread started by the original question posting. Your followup doesn't have to be long and involved; a simple "Howdy, it was a failed network cable! Thanks, everyone!" would be better than nothing. In fact, a short and sweet summary is better than a long dissertation unless the solution has real technical depth. Say what action solved the problem, but you need not replay the whole troubleshooting sequence.

For problems with some depth, it is appropriate to post a summary of the troubleshooting history. Describe your final problem statement. Describe what worked as a solution, and indicate avoidable blind alleys after that. The blind alleys should come after the correct solution and other summary material, rather than turning the follow-up into a detective story. Name the names of people who helped you; you'll make friends that way.

Besides being courteous and informative, this sort of followup will help others searching the archive of the forum to know exactly which solution helped you, and thus may also help them.

Last, and not least, this sort of followup helps everybody who assisted feel a satisfying sense of closure about the problem. If you are not a techie, trust us that this feeling is very important to the gurus and experts you tapped for help. Problem narratives that trail off into unresolved nothingness are frustrating things; techies itch to see them resolved. The goodwill that scratching that itch earns you will be very, very helpful to you next time you need to pose a question.

Consider how you might be able to prevent others from having the same problem in the future. Ask yourself if a documentation or FAQ would help, and if the answer is yes, send that patch to the community.

Among most folks, this sort of good followup behavior is actually more important than conventional politeness. It's how you get a reputation for playing well with others, which can be a very valuable asset.

<< Page 3: When You Ask (part 1) | Page 5: How To Interpret Answers >>

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