re: On Asking Questions

[denzil]

On the asking questions theres nice article on How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

[PyTom]

While I've read that article, I'm not a super-big fan of it. I like discussion, and I'd like people to feel that they are supported here. I don't want people to get stuck tracking down a bug, when they could be making games.

[monele]

On that topic, I've always meant to ask : do you prefer one topic per question or grouping slightly related questions? I know I tend to add new questions to threads and they're not always *technically* related (more project related). Also, if there really is one topic per question, does adding "[solved]" to the subject seem like a good idea?

[PyTom]

I'm agnostic to the question-grouping issue, so long as the subject reflects the questions.

[monele]

Hmm... I see... Will have to observe how it goes next times

[Watercolorheart]

On the asking questions theres nice article on How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

No offense meant to you, Monele, but, God, the author of that article is a smug know-it-all. I'm not saying there's not some meaningful stuff in there, but he's really super condescending.

Remember, there are many other users that are not experiencing your problem. Otherwise you would have learned about it while reading the documentation and searching the Web (you did do that before complaining, didn't you?). This means that very probably it is you who are doing something wrong, not the software.

Ugh. (On a more personal note, I know I have trouble phrasing my thoughts when it comes to programming but sometimes it is a genuine bug that was missed ... The sound channel bug in 6.1a springs to mind because it was most recent for me: "What am I doing wrong?" "Am I typing it badly?" "Where's the indentation error?") )

[monele]

No offense meant to you, Monele

No offense taken... since I'm not the linker

[Watercolorheart]

LOL, I can't read. XD

Sorry, denzil.

[PyTom]

Another thing to add to this thread:

Please ask questions on the forum. I've been getting a number of questioned PMed to me recently. While I don't mind answering them, I think it's best that questions be asked in public, as this:

1) Gives other people a shot at answering the question.
2) Allows other people to benefit from the answer to the question.

Now, obviously there are some questions that would reveal spoilers to games, that should be asked in private. I don't mind those. But please use your judgement, and prefer asking questions in public.

[herenvardo]

On the asking questions theres nice article on How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

While I don't think about the content of that article as bad, the tone and form is undeniably too aggressive for the kind of people that might be posting here. However, there is a point of that document that I feel would be worth mentioning:
Search!!
Honestly, I've found myself answering questions about which I had literally no idea simply by skimming the topic list and quoting the answer from a thread where the exact same question had been asked. And that was just skimming recent topics: do you dare to imagine how much you could find by just doing a search on the forum and/or on the ren'py site?
This suggestion is not actually aimed to help answerers (actually, when I try to answer stuff I don't bother too much about duplicate questions: that means more people I might help with my fairly limited knowledge, which always feels good); but to askers themselves: instead of typing both the subject and the body of the question on the post page and having to wait for someone to answer, you just type the subject on the search page and, if you are a bit lucky, you get the answer immediatelly
This is just my opinion, although I'm not sure if it will serve any purpose: the kind of people who tends to read a "On Asking Questions" thread is often the same kind of people who tends to search before asking.

[Jake]

Search!!

As it goes: this is also the reason why it's a good idea to give your topic a relevant descriptive name, and why it's unhelpful to rename the topic to something like "SOLVED!!!" when your question has been answered.

Firstly, just because you know the answer doesn't mean that nobody else has the same problem, so it's useful to keep the question in the title. Secondly, "How do I do such and such (SOLVED)" could be misleading, because it kind of implies that all those other threads without "SOLVED" in the title aren't answered, where in fact they probably are.

[LVUER]

Search!!

As it goes: this is also the reason why it's a good idea to give your topic a relevant descriptive name, and why it's unhelpful to rename the topic to something like "SOLVED!!!" when your question has been answered.

Firstly, just because you know the answer doesn't mean that nobody else has the same problem, so it's useful to keep the question in the title. Secondly, "How do I do such and such (SOLVED)" could be misleading, because it kind of implies that all those other threads without "SOLVED" in the title aren't answered, where in fact they probably are.

And even after the topic title get SOLVED in it, most of the time the topic just keep going on, becoming larger and larger.
Sometimes producing new questions and the debate about old question still going on. So what is the meaning of solvedhere ^_^
When a topic is solved, I think there should be no more new reply on that particular topic. And I think that is a bad idea (unless we encourage new topics in this forum). So a topic/question will never be solved.

[Jake]

(unless we encourage new topics in this forum).

I seem to recall it having been encouraged more than once in this forum to start a new topic for a new question, for precisely the reason that people searching for answers to that question will find it more easily.

[monele]

Why not enforce the fact a solved topic should have "solved" added to it? It should be the OP's job, but if not done, it should be asked by people who notice it's missing... and if the OP has sadly disappeared, it should be done by an admin.

And then, when a topic is solved, it could also be closed or at least someone should clearly demand a new topic if there's a new question. It's strict, but it would make searching for things easier in the long run ^^

Thoughts?

[Jake]

Thoughts?

My first thought is that it's very unlikely to happen because I doubt the forum administration would like the idea... they've historically been very hands-off. Any suggestion with the word 'enforce' in it doesn't sound so likely.

More rules ("do this thing when your questions get answered") means more opportunities for people to break the rules, which means more bad feeling amongst those people who stick to them. We already know that a lot of users do things like post questions in the wrong forum, so it's reasonable to assume that a lot of people wouldn't remember or bother or realise they had to change their topic titles as well.

So it would end up creating a large administration task for the people running the forum, since they'd have to monitor all the question threads and ensure they're properly tagged. Not to mention that the same issue would exist with the huge backlog of already-answered question threads, which people are just as likely to turn up with a search... and there'd be the question of what to do with threads where a question was asked and a solution suggested but the user with the question never returns to mention whether it worked or not.