Whether it’s with programming or an EE course, whenever I run into a problem I just don’t understand, I turn to everyone’s best friend, Google. I’ve never given much thought to whether or not a question was asked in an effective way nor the proper way to pose a question to get productive responses -however I have thought a post’s code was too extensive to be worth looking through. Although I’m typically content with lurking on forums looking for posts with similar issues, knowing how to ask questions the right way can help you to effectively communicate with classmates, professors, and anyone else you’ll interact with. Eric Raymond’s essay How To Ask Questions The Smart Way suggests there are several steps to follow in order to create a smart question.
The first step for asking a smart question is to do a Google search and check if other forums have posts similar to the question you have. After determining there’s no information that provides a sufficient answer, you must consider how to compose a post; using proper English and spelling, as well as providing information in a precise and concise way can increase the likelihood you’ll get a productive response.
Searching on Stack Overflow for a post that follows all the rules of smart questions turned out to be pretty difficult. One post that represented some of the rules pretty well concerned the purpose of “use strict” in JavaScript. The title of the post is directly related to its purpose, the poster reports the error they received, and what they had learned through their own Google search. It seems like the poster was given a few article referrals regarding the topic with some examples of information that was closely related to “use strict”. Another interesting example of a decently smart question was Why does HTML think “chucknorris” is a color. Like the last post, the title of the post was relevant to its content. The user also included a sample of the code they were observing and other tests they had performed using similar strings. Although the user received a few thorough answers with examples, I believe they could have learned similar instances if they had searched online.
As with the smart questions, there were many questions that went against the rules of smart questions, but didn’t necessarily disobey all of them. One example of a question that wasn’t so great was a question regarding PHP code. From the title it is unclear what the goal of the user is; although the user posts sample code they don’t describe its purpose nor did they give much explanation of what they want to achieve. Most comments were confused about what the user was trying to achieve, however they still received one comment that attempted to solve their problem. Another post which wasn’t well received concerned a function which attempted to calculate the month a pregnant woman would deliver. Although the title of the post could probably be deciphered, one user stated it could be interpreted offensively and suggested they post on a site for non-native English speakers. The user provided their function code, but neglected to include other information about it, such as what they attempted to do or where they were running into issues; the post was ultimately closed because other users found the purpose of the poster’s question unclear. Despite the negative feedback the user received, they still received a couple of answers which attempted to solve the function.
After looking through a few posts, using the rules of smart questions will definitely improve the likelihood you’ll get an effective response. However, not following the rules doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t get any answers. I think most posts wouldn’t get as many snarky comments as the author claims, most people would probably just ignore a question they don’t feel is worth answering rather than spending time to create a reply. Even though you’re not completely doomed if you don’t ask a smart question, it’s better to create a post that has the potential to be productive.