The art of asking questions in the "Beginner's question guide"

Beginner's Guide

Although this is the old saying talk about, but the recent answer to the question of the process, a little touched. You ask a good question, ask the accurate, answer your talent has the initiative to give you an answer, so you can solve your problem faster. A lot of people don't know how to ask questions, so I'm going to turn this old article around. Take some time to see.
If there is no time, at least take a look at the following chart:



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What kind of answer can you get when you ask a technical question? It depends on the difficulty of digging out the answer, and also on the way you ask. This guide is designed to help you improve your questioning skills to get the answers you want most ...

Don't want to hide the contempt for some of these peopleThey do not want to think, or do not do what they should do before they ask questions. They only kill time-they just take it, never give it, and consume our time, and we can spend time with more interesting questions or more deserving people. We call this A "loser" (for historical reasons, we sometimes spell it "lusers").

Before you ask (before ask)

Before you ask a technical question by email, newsgroup, or chat room, check to make sure you do:
1. Read through the manual and try to find the answer yourself.
2. Find the answer in the FAQ (a well-maintained FAQ can be all-encompassing:).
3. Search online (personal referral google~~~).
4. Ask your friends who are proficient in this way.

When you ask a question, the first thing you need to know is what you did before that, and it will help to build up your image: You are not a beggar who is trying to get something for nothing, and not willing to waste others ' time. If the questioner can learn something from the answer, we are more than happy to answer his question.

Thoughtful thinking, preparing your questions, hasty questions can only be answered hastily, or there is no answer at all. The more you show the effort to solve the problem before you ask for help, the more substantial help you can get.

Be careful not to ask the wrong questions.

On the other hand, it is a very good start to show that you are willing to do something in the process of finding the answer. "Who can give a hint?" What is missing in my example? "and" Where should I check? " It's easier to get a response than to put the exact process on the list. Because you seem to have the ability and determination to do it as long as someone is pointing the right way.

How to ask (when you ask)

Select Forum Carefully

Be careful to choose the occasion to ask questions. If, as described below, you are likely to be overlooked or seen as a loser:
1. Post your question in a irrelevant forum
2. Post very elementary questions in forums that explore advanced techniques;
3. Cross-posting in too many different newsgroups

Use your words properly, correct your grammar, and spell them correctly.

We find from experience that careless writers are often sloppy thinkers (I dare to pack tickets).

It is not worth answering the careless question, we prefer to spend it elsewhere.

Correct spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are important.

More generally, if your question is written like a functional illiteracy, you are likely to be overlooked.

If you're asking questions in a non-native language forum, you can make a few spelling and grammatical mistakes-but never think about the tiger (yes, we can figure out the difference)

Use meaning rich, descriptive accurate title

In a mailing list or newsgroup, a topic title of about 50 words is the golden opportunity to capture the attention of a seasoned expert.Don't use chattering "help" (not to mention "HELP"!!!!! "It's disgusting" to waste this opportunity. Don't try to impress us with the extent of your pain, don't use spaces instead of the description of the problem, even if it's a very brief description.

Stupid question:

Help me! My laptop is not showing up properly!

Smart questions:

XFREE86 4.1 mouse cursor deformation, fooware MV1005 of the display chip.

If you ask a question in the reply, remember to revise the content title to indicate that there is a problem. A problem that looks like "Re: Test" or "Re: New Bug" is hard to draw enough attention to. In addition, quoting and cutting the contents of the previous article leaves a clue to the new reader.

Accurate description, large amount of information

1. Carefully and clearly describe the symptoms.
2. Provide the environment in which the problem occurred (machine configuration, operating system, application, and other).
3. Explain how you study and understand the problem before you ask it.
4. Explain what steps you have taken before asking to solve it.
5. List recent hardware and software changes that may have impacted.

Simon Tatham wrote an excellent essay titled "How to Report a bug effectively". Strongly recommend you also read it.

Not many words.

You need to provide accurate and effective information. This is not to ask you to simply extract tons of error codes or data from a full dump into your question. If you have a large and complex test condition, try to cut it as small as possible.

The use of this is at least three points. First, show that you have worked hard to simplify the problem, which can increase your chances of getting answers, and secondly, the opportunity to simplify your questions to get useful answers increases; Third, in the process of refining your bug report, you may be able to identify the problem or make corrections yourself.

Stupid question:

I encountered SIG11 errors again and again in kernel compilation, and I suspect that one of the flying lines is on the motherboard's route,

What should be the best way to check this situation?

Smart questions:

My homemade set of k6/233 systems, Motherboard is fic-pa2007 (VIA Apollo VP2 chipset), 256MB
Corsair PC133 SDRAM, in the kernel compile frequently generate SIG11 errors, from the boot 20 minutes after this situation, 20 minutes before the boot has never happened. Restarting is not a good use, but the shutdown will work 20 minutes a night. All the memory has been changed, no effect. The typical compilation record for the relevant section is as follows ....

List symptoms in chronological order

The most helpful clue to finding a problem is often a series of actions before the problem occurs, so your instructions should include the procedure and the computer's response until the problem arises.

If your instructions are long (more than four paragraphs), it helps to outline the questions at the beginning, followed by chronological detail. This will let people know what to look for in your instructions.

Understand what you want to ask

The rambling question is a near-endless time black hole. The person who can give you the most useful answers is also the busiest (they are busy doing most of the work themselves). Such people are not too cold for the time-limited black hole, so they can also say that they are not very cold about rambling questions. If you explicitly describe what you need the answer to (providing advice, sending a piece of code, checking your patch or something else), you are most likely to get a useful answer. This will set a limit of time and energy, so that the respondents can concentrate on helping you, which is very effective.

The less time it takes to solve your problem, the more you can get the answer from a busy expert. Therefore, it can be helpful to optimize the structure of the problem and minimize the time it takes for the experts to solve it, which is often different from simplifying the problem. So, "I want to better understand x, can I give you a hint?" "Usually better than asking," Can you explain x? Better If your code doesn't work, it's much wiser to ask what's wrong with it than to ask someone to change it for you.

Don't ask questions that you should solve yourself.

You have to take care of these problems and you will learn from them. You can ask for a hint, but don't ask for a complete solution.

Get rid of meaningless questions

Don't end the question with meaningless words, such as "Can someone help me?" "or" Is there an answer? ”。

First of all: if you do not describe the problem is very appropriate, so the question is superfluous. Second: Because it is superfluous to ask, others will be bored with you-and usually use logically correct answers to show their contempt, for example: "Yes, someone can help you" or "No, no answer".

Humility is no harm, and often helps.

Polite, use "please" and "Thank you first". Let everyone know that you are grateful for their time-consuming commitment to help.

However, if you have a lot of problems that cannot be solved, politeness will increase your chances of getting useful answers.

After the problem is resolved, add a short explanation

After the problem is resolved, send a note to all the people who have helped you, let them know how the problem is resolved, and thank them once again. If the issue has aroused widespread concern in newsgroups or mailing lists, a supplemental note should be posted there. The supplemental instructions do not have to be long or in-depth; a simple "Hello, the original is a network cable problem!" Thank you all--bill "than say nothing to be strong." In fact, unless the conclusion is really technical, a short, lovely summary is better than a lengthy academic paper. Explain how the problem is solved, but it is not necessarily the process of solving the problem to retell it again.

In addition to expressing courtesy and feedback, this supplement helps others search the mailing lists/newsgroups/forums for complete solutions that have helped you, which may also be useful for them.

Last (at least?) ), this supplement helps all those who have provided help to get satisfaction from it. This feeling is very important for those mentors or experts you ask for help. It's frustrating to have a long-overdue problem, a good person who has an excellent report and a desire to meet them, and you'll get a taste of the next time you post a new question.

The art of asking questions in the "Beginner's question guide"