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[WiP] Why Certain Questions Frustrate Me #667

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nelsonic opened this issue Feb 7, 2019 · 2 comments
Open

[WiP] Why Certain Questions Frustrate Me #667

nelsonic opened this issue Feb 7, 2019 · 2 comments
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bug Suspected or confirmed bug (defect) in the code

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@nelsonic
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nelsonic commented Feb 7, 2019

... there are many ways of asking questions.

"Should we ...?"
"Should I ...?"
"Should somebody [else] ...?"
"Why isn't ... done yet?"
"What's the problem with ...?"
"What should I do next?"

There are questions that show that someone is engaged in the problem they are attempting to solve,
and there are questions that clearly show that the person is not minimally interested in making an effort and just wants someone else to make the problem "go away".

I plan on expanding this into a more thorough post.
I just want to capture the seed of the thought here so I can get back to my other work!

@nelsonic nelsonic added the bug Suspected or confirmed bug (defect) in the code label Feb 7, 2019
@nelsonic
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I opened this issue a couple of weeks ago to capture my thoughts on the way people ask questions.

We recently got the following question on one of our GitHub repositories:
express-session-question

I have made every effort to anonymise the identity of the person asking the question as my objective is not "naming and shaming", but rather to capture my thoughts and share "constructive feedback".

If you are easily offended ❄️ by constructive feedback please don't read any further.

Note on asking questions: While we are always welcoming of questions in the @dwyl community and we do our best to answer them in a helpful and polite way, there are ways of asking questions that will lead to faster progress. (i.e. if you ask better questions you will learn/ship faster!)

This question appears to be "exploratory" ... the words "is there anyway" suggests the OP has not done much googling or taken the time to write the 10 lines of code needed to test this out first.
That means they have not made any progress towards their objective/goal, this is a slow way of learning or solving problems which should be avoided.

An alternative way of phrasing the question is:
"Hi! I've read all the docs for express-session and dwyl-module-x and these 3 tutorials {insert links} for how to wire it up, I'm stuck with part X, and here is a snippet of my code that anyone can run to help me debug it. Has anyone else managed to get express-session working with dwyl-module-x?
Don't "outsource" your thinking or Googling to someone else ... especially people who have made their code available for Free and whose time is scarce, it's a fast way to annoy people because it comes across as "lazy". NOT saying the OP in this question is "lazy"; the fact that they have taken the initiative to open any question puts them way ahead of their peers who don't ask any questions!

I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, because
a) English is not a first language for the majority of people in the world. So the "language barrier" is my first thought. (Note: I'm not saying that is the case for this OP who is using a .tk TLD which implies they are from New Zealand where the first language is English ... but in general a language barrier can cause people to not have the vocabulary to fully convey their thoughts.)
b) Nobody gets taught how to ask questions online in "school" (mostly because most teachers don't know themselves so they cannot possibly pass on the knowledge they don't have ...) but asking questions is one of the greatest life skills and is worth diligently researching, cultivating and sharing with others.

To be 100% Clear I'm "guilty" of asking incomplete questions as much as anyone else
I'm definitely not claiming to be an "expert" on asking questions! But I feel that I am methodical/deliberate when opening a question that essentially demands someone else gives me their time for Free. For example: https://github.com/dwyl/home/issues/37
And crucially following up and thanking people for their time when I get an answer.

I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt and answered in the most polite and helpful way I could:
express-session-answer
Even though the OP in question is a "repeat offender" who has asked two other such "do my work for me for free" questions. 😞

The "time poor" and frustrated person in me would have simply closed the issue because the person has put almost zero effort into formulating the question.
But I genuinely make an effort to be nice online even when I think people are wasting my time.
And I intend to write an "essay" about exactly how to ask questions in the near future.
So that I/we can help people learn how to formulate good questions that will be more likely to receive good answers and be helpful to others in the community.

@nelsonic
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Relevant to this is: http://sscce.org ("Short, Self Contained, Correct (Compilable), Example")

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