So after finding literally thousands of annoying posts on the Ubuntu forums (but very few here) I thought maybe some tips for posters here might help keep this forum more functional for both ends of the equation. Nothing frustrates more than needing help and getting silence or having a couple of hours to spend helping and finding no posts worthy of attention. Most of this post is plagiarized from exterm at pclinuxos forums...
Before posting a request for help:
* 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 or man page.
* Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
* Try to find an answer by inspecting your log files.
* Try to find an answer by experimentation.
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.
When You Ask, choose your forum carefully: Be sensitive in choosing where you ask your question. You are likely to be ignored or written off, if you:
* post your question to a forum where it's off topic
* post a very elementary question to a forum where advanced technical questions are expected, or vice-versa
* cross-post to too many different sections
* post a personal e-mail to somebody who is neither an acquaintance of yours nor personally responsible for solving your problem
Use meaningful, specific subject headers: This may be the most important part of your post! On forums, the subject header is your golden opportunity to attract qualified experts' attention in around 50 characters or fewer. Don't waste it on babble like “Please help me” or worse “PLEASE HELP ME!!!!” Messages with subjects like that get discarded by reflex. Don't try to impress us with the depth of your anguish. Use the space for a concise description of your problem.
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.
* Bad: HELP! Video doesn't work properly on my laptop!
* Better: X.org 6.8.1 mouse cursor messed up on Foomagic card
* Best: X.org 6.8.1 mouse cursor on Foomatic DV6300 chipset is misshapen
The process of writing an “object-deviation” description will help you organize your thinking about the problem in more detail. What is affected? Just the mouse cursor or other graphics too? Is this specific to the X.org version of X? To version 6.8.1? Is this specific to Foomatic video chipsets? To model DV6300? This can help us immediately understand what it is that you are having a problem with and the problem you are having, at a glance.
Write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled language; Spell, punctuate, and capitalize correctly - or at least make an effort. By experience, people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy thinkers. Answering questions for careless and sloppy thinkers is not rewarding; we'd rather spend our time elsewhere. Expressing your question clearly and well is important. Misspelled and grammatically incorrect text can be difficult to read and therefore easy to ignore altogether. It doesn't have to be stiff or formal, but it has to be precise; there has to be some indication that you're thinking and paying attention.
One exception to this is if English is not your first language. In that case, you may want to begin your post by stating that fact in some way so you're forgiven if you've misspoken.
Be precise and informative about your problem;
* Describe the symptoms of your problem or bug carefully and clearly.
* Describe the environment in which it occurs: machine, OS, application, whatever applies
* 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.
* Describe any possibly relevant recent changes in your computer or software configuration.
Do the best you can to anticipate the questions you will be asked by a responder, and answer them in advance in your request for help. Describe the problem's raw symptoms of what goes wrong, rather than your interpretations and theories. Let them do the interpretation and diagnosis. Do state what you've attempted and why - but not untested guesses.
Begging or whining is not a substitute for doing your homework. Starting out with “I know I'm just a pathetic newbie loser, but...”. This is distracting and unhelpful. It's especially annoying when it's coupled with vagueness about the actual problem.
Describe the goal, not the step. If you are trying to find out how to do something (as opposed to reporting a bug), 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.
* Unhelpful: How do I get the color-picker on the FooDraw program to take a hexadecimal RGB value?
* Helpful: I'm trying to replace the color table on an image with values of my choosing. Right now the only way I can see to do this is by editing each table slot, but I can't get FooDraw's color picker to take a hexadecimal RGB value.
The second version of the question is smarter. It allows an answer that suggests a tool better suited to the task.
Work with what advice you're given. Nothing frustrates more than - after having spent 30 minutes researching someone else's problem - return to the post to find "Well, that seemed too hard so I re-installed." Part of the beauty of linux is you have the power to fix things. Finding a solution may not only help others in the same boat but may point to a real bug that needs to be addressed to a developer. The goal of posting in a forum should be a helpful exchange of information - not just a written notice that you had a problem. Don't be afraid to learn something new.
Be courteous. Use “Please” and “Thanks for your attention”. Make it clear you appreciate the time people spend helping you for free. Saying "Thanks in advance" on your first post is not a good substitute for a real "Thank you" after your issue has been resolved. This is less important than having the technical parts of your question done well, but politeness does increase your chances of getting a useful answer and "Thank you" tells us our time answering you was well spent.
Follow up with a brief note on the solution. 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 follow up there too. Your follow up doesn't have to be long and involved; a simple “Howdy — it was a failed network cable! Thanks, everyone. - Bill” 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.
Once your issue is resolved, add ‘FIXED’, ‘RESOLVED’ or 'SOLVED' to the subject line. A potential respondent who sees a thread about “Problem X” ending with “Problem X - FIXED” knows not to waste his/her time even reading the thread (unless they personally finds Problem X interesting) and can therefore use that time solving a different problem. Additionally, this will indicate to someone else with the same or similar issue that there may be a solution waiting for them.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
This post is not intended as an indictment of the users here. Rather I hope to help build a more useful experience for all of us. I welcome retorts or discussions about points within this post...
Regards
Before posting a request for help:
* 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 or man page.
* Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
* Try to find an answer by inspecting your log files.
* Try to find an answer by experimentation.
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.
When You Ask, choose your forum carefully: Be sensitive in choosing where you ask your question. You are likely to be ignored or written off, if you:
* post your question to a forum where it's off topic
* post a very elementary question to a forum where advanced technical questions are expected, or vice-versa
* cross-post to too many different sections
* post a personal e-mail to somebody who is neither an acquaintance of yours nor personally responsible for solving your problem
Use meaningful, specific subject headers: This may be the most important part of your post! On forums, the subject header is your golden opportunity to attract qualified experts' attention in around 50 characters or fewer. Don't waste it on babble like “Please help me” or worse “PLEASE HELP ME!!!!” Messages with subjects like that get discarded by reflex. Don't try to impress us with the depth of your anguish. Use the space for a concise description of your problem.
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.
* Bad: HELP! Video doesn't work properly on my laptop!
* Better: X.org 6.8.1 mouse cursor messed up on Foomagic card
* Best: X.org 6.8.1 mouse cursor on Foomatic DV6300 chipset is misshapen
The process of writing an “object-deviation” description will help you organize your thinking about the problem in more detail. What is affected? Just the mouse cursor or other graphics too? Is this specific to the X.org version of X? To version 6.8.1? Is this specific to Foomatic video chipsets? To model DV6300? This can help us immediately understand what it is that you are having a problem with and the problem you are having, at a glance.
Write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled language; Spell, punctuate, and capitalize correctly - or at least make an effort. By experience, people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy thinkers. Answering questions for careless and sloppy thinkers is not rewarding; we'd rather spend our time elsewhere. Expressing your question clearly and well is important. Misspelled and grammatically incorrect text can be difficult to read and therefore easy to ignore altogether. It doesn't have to be stiff or formal, but it has to be precise; there has to be some indication that you're thinking and paying attention.
One exception to this is if English is not your first language. In that case, you may want to begin your post by stating that fact in some way so you're forgiven if you've misspoken.
Be precise and informative about your problem;
* Describe the symptoms of your problem or bug carefully and clearly.
* Describe the environment in which it occurs: machine, OS, application, whatever applies
* 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.
* Describe any possibly relevant recent changes in your computer or software configuration.
Do the best you can to anticipate the questions you will be asked by a responder, and answer them in advance in your request for help. Describe the problem's raw symptoms of what goes wrong, rather than your interpretations and theories. Let them do the interpretation and diagnosis. Do state what you've attempted and why - but not untested guesses.
Begging or whining is not a substitute for doing your homework. Starting out with “I know I'm just a pathetic newbie loser, but...”. This is distracting and unhelpful. It's especially annoying when it's coupled with vagueness about the actual problem.
Describe the goal, not the step. If you are trying to find out how to do something (as opposed to reporting a bug), 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.
* Unhelpful: How do I get the color-picker on the FooDraw program to take a hexadecimal RGB value?
* Helpful: I'm trying to replace the color table on an image with values of my choosing. Right now the only way I can see to do this is by editing each table slot, but I can't get FooDraw's color picker to take a hexadecimal RGB value.
The second version of the question is smarter. It allows an answer that suggests a tool better suited to the task.
Work with what advice you're given. Nothing frustrates more than - after having spent 30 minutes researching someone else's problem - return to the post to find "Well, that seemed too hard so I re-installed." Part of the beauty of linux is you have the power to fix things. Finding a solution may not only help others in the same boat but may point to a real bug that needs to be addressed to a developer. The goal of posting in a forum should be a helpful exchange of information - not just a written notice that you had a problem. Don't be afraid to learn something new.
Be courteous. Use “Please” and “Thanks for your attention”. Make it clear you appreciate the time people spend helping you for free. Saying "Thanks in advance" on your first post is not a good substitute for a real "Thank you" after your issue has been resolved. This is less important than having the technical parts of your question done well, but politeness does increase your chances of getting a useful answer and "Thank you" tells us our time answering you was well spent.
Follow up with a brief note on the solution. 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 follow up there too. Your follow up doesn't have to be long and involved; a simple “Howdy — it was a failed network cable! Thanks, everyone. - Bill” 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.
Once your issue is resolved, add ‘FIXED’, ‘RESOLVED’ or 'SOLVED' to the subject line. A potential respondent who sees a thread about “Problem X” ending with “Problem X - FIXED” knows not to waste his/her time even reading the thread (unless they personally finds Problem X interesting) and can therefore use that time solving a different problem. Additionally, this will indicate to someone else with the same or similar issue that there may be a solution waiting for them.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
This post is not intended as an indictment of the users here. Rather I hope to help build a more useful experience for all of us. I welcome retorts or discussions about points within this post...
Regards
).
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