I had been on S.O. for over a year (maybe longer) before I gained any substantial privileges. At 500 points, I got to Access Review Queues.
When I found out about Review Queues, I became almost patriotic, lol. I wanted to give back to my new programmer country-men and women. So I dove in.
[Review queues help those] "who may not fully understand the best way to ask and answer questions" - Stackoverflow
When you join Stack Overflow, you get 1 point (woo-who), and your questions are diverted for review. It turns out all newbie questions and answers are vetted before being posted. I bet most of you didn't know that.
What did I learn?
- There really is a right and wrong way to ask questions.
- Very few people know how to ask a good question right away.
- Many tongue-tied programmer Reviewers referred newbies to a pat-posted-answer that absolved them from explaining anything AND (for the most past) being decent to people.
Asking good questions and Googling things is a BIG part of programming and it doesn't need to be difficult.
Remember a few things.
- KISS, keep it simple. Ask ONE thing at a time.
BAD:
- "I have this problem X... If the problem is not X, Could it be a..., b..., c..., d..., e..?"
- NOTE: Each letter is followed by a VERY long explanation.
- "I have this problem. And by the way, I have seven more unrelated ones, while I am here."
GOOD:
"When I read in X.csv file, I am not getting Y, but instead I find Z.
Here is my input, output and a small segment of code.
What could I change?"
What have you experienced on Stack Overflow?
Next time! What is a minimal reproducible example?
Top comments (1)
Yeah, sometimes it is hard to create a reproducible example small enough, but it is definitely worth the effort.