Asking questions and getting help is very much a learned skill. You will get better at this as you learn. Your goal should be to eliminate back and forward question and answer regarding your problem. This way you get your answer/solution faster and everyone’s time is respected.
From the perspective of someone wanting to help, we enjoy solving problems. Helping beginners with their problems can be fun for many reasons:
- Solving easy problems is a nice moral boost
- Its nice to be able to be the mentor, especially if you’ve experienced being on the other side.
- Solving problems is just fun.
However, if your question looks like its going to be a huge amount of work to just get the information out of you, odds are, we won’t even bother replying. If you’re making posts and not getting replies, its probably because you’ve not given enough information and that just spoils the fun for us and it into actual work, which we’re not here to do.
Ideal template
You don’t have to follow this template exactly, but so long as you include this information you should be golden.
## Steps performed (and other information)
<!-- You should describe the problem and the steps you took to get to where you're currently at. You should also include versions of languages/tools you're using. If you've written code, post the code. This will always be the first question we ask. -->
## Results
<!-- Showcase the current result. Include screenshots of errors or similar -->
## Expected results
<!-- Describe the result you expected. If you're following a tutorial or guide, include that here -->Common Mistakes
This section also contains notes that can be linked on places like discord and will show social preview.
Don’t ask to ask a question, just ask the question.
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Often times, showing the error state isn’t enough. You will need to show how you got to the error state as well. Please include any commands executed or the least amount of code (or your code repository) to recreate your problem.
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When coding, you often run into secondary problems. When you’re asking for help, its important to make sure you include the original problem in your question/message. e.g.
Link to originalwhile trying to do X, I got stuck with Y. If you’re not familiar with X, you probably don’t know if Y is the right problem to be solving. There might be simpler/better alternative paths to solving problemX.
Not all questions benefit from including code, but if your problem is with code you’ve written, you should include some. This will almost always be the first thing asked of you if not supplied. We might not even read your post if there’s no code.
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Make sure to always have a title and description that relate to your problem.