DISCUSSION: How To Ask a Question

XavierP · 11-24-2006, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JZL240I-U

My suggested addition (underscored):

Quote:

a) Go through the steps
It is immensely frustrating for any helper when perfectly sound advice isn't acted upon. So, when you get advice what to do please do try it and report back the results / failures. That is particularly necessary if the some suggestions are steps in a whole procedure to be tried out for finding a solution and only 15 posts later the original poster grudgingly deigns to test a suggestion already three days old and a lot of effort of other people wasted.

b) When your problem is solved at long last

Feel free to alter or omit.

I like it - I'm probably going to use it as is.

Emmanuel_uk · 11-24-2006, 08:30 AM

I almost forgot

Please read the LQ rules (you have already :-)
to be sure your question is appropriate. Homework questions are rarely
answered unless you have contributed 100s+ of post, in which case
moderators are sometimes charitable

Emmanuel_uk · 11-24-2006, 08:40 AM

also forgot
"Please select the forum appropriately where to post question
A question about networking when you have spent 2 days on the distro is probably for the newbie forum, not networking
A mandriva compiz question is not for the sclackware forum, it is a mandriva question (I sware)
Reading the sub forum description will help you to decide.
It will get moved eventually if you choose the wrong forum, but every little help

JZL240I-U · 11-24-2006, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emmanuel_uk

...unless you have contributed 100s+ of post, in which case moderators are sometimes charitable

Hehe

@ XavierP You might want to add a more forceful reminder to please give a complete profile and / or use the signature for more information on the hard- / software. Maybe Jeremy should make it mandatory to have a complete profile

.

XavierP · 11-24-2006, 09:15 AM

Emmanuel_UK - the correct wording should be

Quote:

Homework questions are rarely answered unless you have clearly shown us an understanding of the work you have been set and are not asking us to do the work for you.

I think that we don't want to be too prescriptive on where people should post: a new member may be someone who understands Linux and networking intimately but just needs an extra brain.

JZL240I-U - I agree, but think that that may be for my next project - updating the "How To Use LQ" tutorial!

Emmanuel_uk · 11-27-2006, 01:47 AM

Quote:

I think that we don't want to be too prescriptive on where people should post

How about then just:

Please try to post to the relevant forum (see forum
descriptions or sample some threads), as this will
maximise your chance of a rapid answer,
and will give the exposure your thread deserves.
LQ is not dogmatic on where people should post,
so you will find with experience you have quite some freedom.

hm3 · 07-26-2008, 08:45 PM

Whoops wrong forum! See this would not happen if you do not divert the attention of first time posts at the begining of this Newbie forum. If you want it paid attention to post it alone on a pge leading to posting in this forum. Do not mix it among the posts complaining about our questions and expect all to heed its warning.

note

Pat

XavierP · 07-27-2008, 06:58 AM

It's not mixed in. The how tos are all in their own section and the discussion area is in it's own section.

ashikali22 · 08-27-2008, 03:19 AM

hai this is ashik

im new one
how to ask and get answar

estabroo · 08-28-2008, 10:55 AM

Pick a forum relevant to the question you want to ask and then post your question.

pinballwizard66 · 10-08-2008, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by estabroo

Pick a forum relevant to the question you want to ask and then post your question.

And try to write as much about the problem as you can, give all the info you have so people understand what you want and can help you.

Debian Development

nagendralinux · 01-27-2009, 01:51 PM

It seems that you are getting direct Mandrake Linux without ask any choice.

I think windows boot loader has been corrupted or windows information has been removed from your boot loader configuration file.

I would like to know what boot loader are you using.

However, follow the below step to find out you are root or not.

type id command after login.

If id will show 0 it means you are root otherwise you are normal user.

also, it will show the user name and group name.

Thanks,
Nagendra

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konch

First of all I am new to Linux. I have a smattering of knowledge about things in Linux.

When I start my computer I have a choice to go either to Windows 2000 Professional version or Mandrake Linux.

When I select Mandrake Linux, I get Mandrake Linux. Then I go to Interenet, collect my email, write letters using the Open Office Program, etc.

Recently I had a small crash, after this crash I cannot get into the Linux. I just come to the root. The following is the current problem in stepwise.

1) It asked the login name -> I write the login name and press enter.
2) It asked the password -> I write the password and press enter.

3)Then I come to the the following root:

4)[alfento@digicam rchtr] $

5) The above is the root, to the best of my knowledge of Linux.

6) When I issue basic commands like ls, du ,df etc works fine. So I am in the root.

7) I gave the command 'kde' , it does not work.

8) I gave the command 'Linux' command, it didn't work.

9) When I gave the command 'vi' , it worked and I got the text editing program.

10) When I gave ' Alt + F8 ' command, I want it to give me the KDE. No it didn't work.

11) Ctrl + Alt + Del command works fine and it restarts the computer.

How I can get in to my Linux? I just come to the above mentioned (4).

It has been working for more than 6 months. After the crash yesterday, I am in trouble.

salasi · 01-27-2009, 07:09 PM

As one of the very frequent problems that I see is a very poor choice of title, I'd like that section expanded and given more emphasis. I'm not really sure that it will help much though.

Quote:

Your Thread Title
This seems silly but it is actually pretty important. Many people will just skip over a thread if the title isn't informative.

Bad Title: Help Me, Please!!!!!! - putting 5 exclamation marks after your title doesn't make it any more compelling. It tells us nothing about the topic and decreases the likelihood of a member reading your thread.

Good Title: Installed GAIM, Won't Connect to MSN

Suggestions (in a quote box, just to make it comparable to the previous version):

Quote:

The title is the first thing that attracts people to read your post and you want to attract people who are interested in solving your kind of problem, so, to maximise your chances of getting a helpful answer, use an informative title.

Bad Title: Help Me, Please!!!!!! - putting 5 exclamation marks after your title doesn't make it any more compelling. It tells us nothing about the topic and decreases the likelihood of a member reading your thread.

Bad Title: It doesn't work URGENT - You can put more of a clue about what it is that doesn't work into a title than that, and you should. Urgent is also a well known irritant, and will cause some people to jump straight past any post with urgent in the title

Bad Title:My spoo doesn't have any fleem - unclear to almost anyone, me included

Good Title: Installed GAIM, Won't Connect to MSN

Good Title: Trying to install firefox; program won't start

(OK, one of those bad titles was supposed to be humourous. I'm not sure that is appropriate, but it made me laugh when I thought of it.) Another approach might be to pair 'bad title' with 'good title' to show how each bad title might be improved, and that might have more impact).

Quote:

b) When your problem is solved at long last
Tell us. Tell us what worked for you. Someone coming along after you with an identical problem needs to know if the fixes work. And, just as importantly, the people who have spent their free time helping you would like to know that you have now solved the problem. Please don't just vanish or walk away without saying Thanks.

Another way is to rate the thread using the "Rate this thread" link at the top of the posts, or simply to tag it with "Answer" or "Solved". This way anyone coming along after you is aware that there was an answer to the problem or that the suggestions are particularly good.

I've seen one forum use [solved] added to the title to indicate a thread which had included an answer. I thought this was a good idea, however with the number of 'post once and then vanish' posters we have here, I have some doubts about whether it will work here. I don't know what the underlying difference is between fora for which this can work and fora for which it can't...

Quote:

What was written above applies to all questions - we need information. Tell us your hardware, what happened before you tried it, what changes have you made. Tell us everything - you save a lot of frustration down the line

I see a number of posts with dramatically too much information and a larger number with dramatically too little. I would like OPs to consider the question "What information might an expert need to answer such a problem" because I can't believe that anyone who posts something like
"I have a program which crashes, help me" can have considered that.

And sometimes you see every system log posted, and I don't have the patience to read them, just in case there is something significant hiding in there (and I'm not claiming any particular expertise here, in asking posters to consider what an expert might need).

Another matter which might go here or into the initial instructions would be to give the community aspect more emphasis. I've seen some posts that I considered downright rude, because the OP didn't think about how other users could take advantage of their post and its outcomes and felt that their post was just for them (and that therefore they had the perfect right to make the answer difficult to find, after all it was their property).

So, I'd quite like to see a word or two to emphasise that the people who answer these questions like the idea of building up a searchable database of answers, so that the questions finally tail off (I know, I know). Or, at least, the number of "help me choose a distro" posts tail off.

salasi · 01-28-2009, 06:09 AM

I really should have added (it was getting late and it wasn't the best of days) that the principle behind what I was trying to do was to avoid, where possible, saying:

these are the rules

and to state instead:

this is what you, the OP, gain from doing this correctly and here are some suggestions/examples to clarify how to do it

I know this only sounds like a minor change of emphasis, but sometimes it makes a big difference.

Apologies for failing to include this in the previous post.

ErV · 02-03-2009, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salasi

And sometimes you see every system log posted, and I don't have the patience to read them, just in case there is something significant hiding in there (and I'm not claiming any particular expertise here, in asking posters to consider what an expert might need).

This probably means that you are reading logs inefficiently.
When there is too much information, it doesn't mean that you have to read all of it, it will be waste of time. You don't have to read every line of every system log, thinking about each line for an hour. Skip log it if you know it is irrelevant to a problem. Or "scan" log quickly with your eyes (will take up to 30 seconds for longest system log). If you notice something interesting, then you can stop and examine that part. And there is also "find" function in every browser, so if you know what error message you are looking for, just search for it.
It is the same as the system manuals - you won't ever need 80% of information available in manuals, so reading every manual (or every word in one manual) will be huge waste of time, because you will forget information you don't need/use. Instead either "scan through" manuals, or read only those parts that have something to do with information you are looking for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by salasi

I've seen some posts that I considered downright rude, because the OP didn't think about how other users could take advantage of their post and its outcomes and felt that their post was just for them (and that therefore they had the perfect right to make the answer difficult to find, after all it was their property).

In my opinion, when poster doesn't ask for help only for himself, this is normal, because discussion will be later found with search engines anyway. But when poster asks for something like "Ok, I fixed problem, now please delete thread so no one else will find the solution easily" (never seen such reply, by the way), this isn't.