Newbie? How to get heard on a forum...

Friendly advice...

(1) The search feature in this or any forum can be a great source of answers. You might find that a question similar to yours has been asked before, maybe even just a few days ago.

(2) When you post, puh-leeze make your topic title meaningful! A single day on a forum like this one will see more than a thousand posts, and so people necessarily must "skim" the material and answer only a very few of the available entries. (That is, if they have a real-job to do!) Don't be shy... don't say "two questions..." ... don't bother to say "n00b." Don't waste space "yelling for HELP!" Instead, be specific. Help the person who wants to help you to find your post.

(3) Make sure that your post contains all of the information you consider to be relevant, while being as condensed as reasonably possible. If you're asking about "a message," tell us exactly what "that message" is.

(4) In time, give as you receive. Gradually you will cease to feel that you are such a newbie, and someone else will follow in your shoes and have the same problem ... help them.

(5) "It happens to all of us." I've been in the data processing business professionally for nearly thirty years now and it still happens. Don't be embarrassed. These forums exist to handle questions, and the people who frequent them take time out of their day both to post them and to answer them, because we all know it's the fastest way to become "un-stuck."

Design, and then title, your posting so that it provides what the reader needs in order to first find, then understand, then reply to your post. Also, place it into the most-appropriate forum.

You haven't got many posts under your belt, but....sticky please!

One thing though: I don't get the

Help the person who wants to help you to find your post.

What do you mean by find? Whenever I reply to a thread, I either click the "threads with zero replies" link or I just go to any random forum - I don't "search" for the threads by name, therefore the "find" bit is slightly misleading!

J_K9

Originally posted by J_K9 One thing though: I don't get the What do you mean by find? Whenever I reply to a thread, I either click the "threads with zero replies" link or I just go to any random forum - I don't "search" for the threads by name, therefore the "find" bit is slightly misleading!

I think he means to make it easier for us to know what the thread is about. But I agree the find is a bit misleading.

Any mod reaing this? Please make this a sticky.

Ahh right. Thanks for clearing that up!

J_K9

P.S Mods/Jeremy please consider making this a sticky

I would like to see it become some sort of "ubersticky" that all newbies have to read as soon as they click on the "new thread" button. Perhaps a nice page triggered by "member status" featuring the above message and links to google and LQSearch?

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=277 written by a good-looking son of a gun!

Lol XavierP: I always considered myself quite handsome too!

j/k!

J_K9

Eric Raymond written a classic.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Sheng-chieh