Why The Question You Asked SUCKS!

You see it everyday in technical forums--people asking questions in a stupid way. This leads to (a) their question getting ignored, or (b) the author of the question getting flamed mercilessly. In the early days of the Internet, a guide was created by one of the founders of "open source" Eric S. Raymond to teach people how to ask questions in a way more likely to get you a satisfactory answer.

REFERENCED:

WANT TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL?

DONATE CRYPTO:
💰 Bitcoin: 1Mp6ebz5bNcjNFW7XWHVht36SkiLoxPKoX
🐶 Dogecoin: D5fpRD1JRoBFPDXSBocRTp8W9uKzfwLFAu
📕 LBC: bMfA2c3zmcLxPCpyPcrykLvMhZ7A5mQuhJ

DT ON THE WEB:

FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE THAT I USE:

Your support is very much appreciated. Thanks, guys!

[dkomanek]

Sometimes if I don't know enough about the topic it's very hard to formulate my questions and find an already existing answer online. More than once I was unable to find a solution to my problem and some time later when I knew more about what I was trying to do I was able to find an answer that already existed when I hadn't been able to find it before. So I have some sympathy for people asking stupid questions. I think that if you find a stupid question you should just ignore it and leave it for someone else to be answered instead of wasting your time by telling the person who asked it how stupid he is.

[fawzanfawzi]

I never use forum to find any of my problems because I'm shy and don't want to deal with toxic people on every forums.

[chessnord]

I am very technical (an experienced software developer/architect) yet, I tell my friends and co-workers that there are no "stupid" or "silly" questions and that they should feel free to ask me anything anytime.

But perhaps I am weird like that.

[linuxrant]

Another important reason why people will not solve their own issues or ask better questions is because all of us have been brutally deprived of critical thinking in school. Logic had been removed from our elementary education. (it was originally in the trivium) (I dont mean the logic used in maths, but in speech and thinking)

[wardm]

I think the method of just messing around trying to get it to work yourself is super underappreciated. Too many people are afraid to try things because they might break something. There have been so many times I was about to ask a question on a forum, and I was like, what the heck, I'm just going to dig into this, try things, and see what happens.

When you do that, you not only usually figure it out yourself, but you learn a ton of unrelated things that makes you all around better equipped for the next time something comes up. When you just type in the code someone else produced, it might fix the problem, but you've learned nothing.

[thisday]

Honestly, I find it weird, that in nowadays there seem to be more and more "manuals" how to ask questions in forums.
Sure, some points are good, like first search the internet and forum itself. But often, especially in tinkering with an operating system that one wants not to mess up, and many different approaches as result of such a search, a new user often doesn't know wich one to follow.

When I started with Linux 11 years ago, I got real good help in a thinkpad forum, where very skilled people helped users of any level of knowledge.
And the worse suggestion was "try out first, although you have no clue what you're doing". Because this makes it so more difficult for others to help with a problem, when things already got messed up.

And we, as kids, still learned: "There are no stupid questions, but only stupid answers." And: "Asking doesn't cost anything."

To relate to this thinkpad-forum again, where you always got a lot of help, there all answers were professional. By the way, even the author of "tlp" a programm many linux-users of notebooks today probably know, answered regurarly, to everyone, even the newest users. Sometimes just with the posting of a wiki link, but something the user could follow.
And so, new users - beginners, like me - were glad, when they finally also could give a good help or answer to new beginners. So the "support" for newbies became kind of a solid chain.

But today, one might even be afraid to ask anything. Even if he tried some google-answers without luck or success.

I really don't understand why don't all those stressed "helpers" simply stop answering, instead of driving new users away from forums with their stressed answers. Maybe they could read a manual about how to respond in the right way, instead of writing manuals how they want to be asked :)

Sometimes I also wonder if these expensive forum-software in nowadays could be a problem too. Where the costs increase with the traffic, and the people who run the forum maybe want people to just find the answer but ask them elsewhere.
Almost all the new forums also do close topics three days after the last post. It seems like they are constructed in such a way, that they rather should be self-building wikis but forums where people talk with eachother.

I don't like the way these things are evolving to. They are seperating people. That's the opposite of what could be reached though the internet. If some stressed skilled linux-users don't want to get bothered by the clueless ones, they should start a chat group for themselfes, or simple not feel adressed and stop answering.

[WhatIsItReallyAbout]

There is a great help-desk acronym.... PICNIC
Problem
In
Chair,
Not
In
Computer.

[jessieneurotica]

for me it usually goes:

1: done
2: done
3: sometimes
4: sometimes
5: if i have a hunch
6: i AM usually the "skilled friend" (not too many techie friends and pretty much no Linux friends)
7: currently beyond my scope

[ArniesTech]

There SHOULD be an Internet etiquette. For those who ask but even more so for those who answer! 🙏

[Casper-bjpo]

I think that when you google your problem and find a solution, If your question is answered to another user for example, You should post a thank you note, To show that you also got your problem solved.

[linuxrant]

I got to share my idea of why people still will post their questions on forums before making an easy search on the web.
It comes from us being human. We sometimes just need to contact another human being, because sometimes we cannot raise ourselves by our own bootstraps. Maybe we need the mere connection, dialogue, or maybe we want to check if someone can find errors in our thinking. I am not sure, but it is sometimes a good idea to ask the dumb question to conscious human beings just in case someone could point me out the dumb presupposition I am not aware of.
I am not defending dumb behavior online, I am trying to understand the behavior :)
Sometimes it's dumb, and sometimes someone shifts our whole point of view with their insight.
How would YOU know when YOU make an error in your presupposition, that you are unaware of?
But also, people might just be lazy, that is an obvious answer ofc.

[Soraviel]

I do not bother asking anyone in the linux community technical questions anymore, if I have made a mistake on my linux computer i just figure it out my self now. Because some people in the linux community are just rude.

I also agree, I type my issues via google and get the answers I want and need.

[darukutsu]

Most people rather ask 2nd person than DIY. I found internet as best friend in 96.123% of search cases. Being lazy to not search and then waiting for response is the worst you can do.

[IAmTheSlink]

People asking questions in forums, which they could have Googled instead, are just mimicing normal behavior. Asking people is simply more natural than an Internet search.

[danduby]

Most of the the time, it's easier just to switch to a different distro.

[ChairmanKam]

2:29 To be fair, there are people like me who are just terrible at phrasing their searches well.

[JakeLinux]

Ignorance of the rules does not excuse treating people like garbage, no matter how dumb you may think the question is. Be kind and courteous in all situations.

[chrissaltmarsh]

A good, and important, discussion for FOSS.
I would add (I have helped people, and got help) that being rude to naifs is not good. Either ignore, or explain how to approach the problem.

[synen]

I see, so DT is a member of the Internet Police 😂

[alenasenie]

0:55 I loved that book, it was my bible to make a working project, the mentality was the most useful thing I could have incorporated, it makes programming so much easier.