How to get help at wMUsers!

[reamon]

Thought that this page was interesting:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

It’s a bit in-your-face but the basics seem helpful. While wMUsers has always had a wide range of posts, from very specific questions to broad pleas for help, it seems there have been more posts than usual that are too vague. Perhaps its just my perception though.

Anyway I thought this page might help us all be better posters and responders. My favorite parts:

• The “Before You Ask” section – this section seems particularly applicable to wMUsers where some of the same basic questions reappear occassionally.

• “The more you do to demonstrate that you have put thought and effort into solving your problem before asking for help, the more likely you are to actually get help.”

• "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” (let alone “PLEASE HELP ME!!!”)

• The “Be precise and informative about your problem” section can help us all.

• The “Describe the problem’s symptoms, not your guesses” section is nice to keep in mind.

• “Don’t flag your question as “Urgent”, even if it is for you”. Along the same lines, it seems rude to post a follow up to a request asking “Any takers?” just a couple hours after the original post.

• The “How To Answer Questions in a Helpful Way” section is awesome.

Please chime in with your thoughts on how to make the wMUsers community stronger!

Last point: webMethods is not a product, it’s a company.

Edit 2023: In 2005, when this post was written, webMethods was a company with various products (none of them named webMethods). When wM was acquired, long ago, webMethods became an umbrella product/brand name applied to many products, rendering the “Last point” item above out-of-date.

[Yemi_Bedu]

Hello,

This is going to be for both the question and answer folks. I would also like to say that there are more articles by Eric and some by Paul Graham that would really help posters on both sides to think about solving problems. I think the How to be a Programmer article is a heavy but informative read.

Some things that I would like to say now are that:

1. If you use english to ask your question, please understand the language “well” so we don’t have to guess what you mean. American English is the primary language on this site and it would nice to read a clear sentences that describe a problem. I am not talking about simple grammar or spelling, as that happens, but clear laziness in typing. Your effort in can be the effort giving out in an answer. It would be nice if you can use one language “well” that is translatable from the Google Translator or (Babelfish). I would be happier to work from that as needed.

2. Please do not double post here. You can post between here and the Advantage web site as you like, but don’t put a single post in multiple sections. That is confusing of aggregating existing efforts.

3. Please acknowledge any answer given that is correct. Sometimes effort is given, and the receiver just goes silent. We don’t know if we were right or wrong, or if a better solution may have been found. This site is give and take, and it would be great to have clear understandings of when a post have provided benefit to a problem.

4. Please try to refer to an existing post if you can. It is nice that if you know that a post had an answer already, that you link to that if possible. This can keep efforts in tight loops and allow one post reference to get answers through many other efforts. This works like the *nix tools on the command line, were we pipe the posts together.

5. Please try to structure your post using the sites built in tools. There are some simple escape commands that can be used to clearly format your post. Formatting on this site is the place to be.

6. The spell checker isn’t great, but let it guide you when it can.

7. Please realize that this is not hosted by webMethods. This is also not a paid support establishment. If your question is answered, it was done as fast as possible by the respondents. All questions and comments are equally important.

8. These are only suggestions. YMMV if you do or don’t go along a similar route. There are no guarantees that what is posted is the truth or if it will ever become true. Good day.

Yemi Bedu

[Guest]

The main thing I like to see in a post is some evidence that the poster has put at least some effort into solving their own problem. If you can’t put any effort into solving it, why should I? Don’t just post a stack trace or log file without at least indicating what you’ve tried to do to interpret it. Most people do like to help somebody who’s putting forth some effort but is just stuck and needs a hand because we’ve all been there.

Also, Rob’s point about using the subject line intelligently deserves special emphasis. It not only makes the poster more likely to get an answer but also makes the answer more easily available to future users who search the forum and get a list of subject headings back. That, in turn, helps reduce multiple threads on the same topics. Thanks,

Tim