In an ideal world, you would be able to use your computer perfectly – hardware would be perfectly manufactured, software would be bug-free, everything would work well together, and it would all make sense to you. In reality, problems often occur; some are trivial annoyances and can be ignored, some are significant, and some are severe. Sometimes you may not know how to do a task with the software or hardware that you have. Software may not have all the features you want, or you may disagree about the way something is done or the way something looks. As a user, you want to get your problems solved, understand the subject that’s causing you trouble, and get a new version of the software the way you’d like it. While the developers may not change their software to meet your specification, chances are good that you’ll be able to get your question answered or figure out the problem you’re having. It may have a workaround or there may be no solution, but the good news is that there are usually answers out there, if you know how to ask.

The Internet has made it easy to find answers. Not only does it provide you with a vast array of content that is easily searched, it’s also easy to communicate with people who have expertise with the software or hardware that are giving you problems. These people are often helpful, as long as you ask useful, interesting questions. The purpose of this guide is to help you find your answers in the shortest amount of time in the easiest manner possible.

You Are Not Entitled To An Answer

If you’ve paid for support for a product, the manufacturer should give you help and support, and in that case, you are entitled. Other than that scenario, you need to remember that you are asking strangers to help you with a problem you are having. This problem probably doesn’t affect them, and they probably receive very little benefit from solving your problem, beyond the feeling of having helped someone and having learned something new. An online community does not owe you an answer, and if you ask your questions using words or tone that demand they help you, you may find that many people, perhaps the only ones with the answer, are not willing to help you.

Know Your Experts

Not all problems require asking people (the answers may already be on the web for you to find!) but for those that do, some will be complex enough to require help from expert users of the hardware or software. Knowing a little about the type of person who has expert knowledge will help you get your answers more effectively.

The expert is busy – Other than paid staff in support areas hosted by the hardware or software manufacturer, the expert has other things to do besides help you with your question, whether it be work, hobbies, or even writing the software you’re asking about. They can be helpful, but helping you takes away from other things that are important to them. They value their time and don’t want to see it wasted. A notable example of this is the developers for the software you’re having trouble with. Spending time answering trivial or poorly-constructed questions means that they’re spending less time improving the software, which directly affects you.

The expert wants to learn – While some experts are happy to help answer questions big and small, many are only interested in the tough problems because those are the ones they can learn from or the ones that allow them to use their expertise to its full potential. An expert has made a considerable time investment to become an expert, and increasing their knowledge is important to them. Many tend to avoid anything from which they won’t personally benefit.

Who is an expert? On most web-based forums, post count is a good, but imperfect indicator. Someone who posts frequently and often obviously has a lot to share, and chances are good that much of that is useful. Don’t automatically look at post count but ignore the quality of posts, however. Some experts may say less but make their fewer posts count. Another obvious expert is a developer for the software in question. They wrote part of the software, so they’ll have the best idea of how the software should work and why it was designed that way.

Of course, you may not need expert advice to solve your problem (and the best strategy is usually to ask in a public place and get your answer from whoever feels inclined to respond), but being aware of the expert mentality will help you out.

Before You Ask (Do Your Homework)

Most people who frequent online forums and provide help to others expect that you’ll have done your homework. This means that you’ve made a good effort to find the answer to your question on your own. If you have not, especially if the question is one that a beginning user of the hardware or software would ask, you’re probably going to be perceived as a timesink – someone who’s going to drain their time by asking frequent, easy questions and expecting others to do the work for them. Most people have better things to do than to coddle a timesink, so if you find people giving short answers, ignoring you, or directing you to the manual or to Google, this is probably why.

What should you do before asking a question?

Experiment

The most important thing you can do when faced with a problem is experiment. This is valuable for two reasons: it increases your expertise with the product and it allows you to be more precise about what didn’t work and why. If you think you’ve found a bug, a better description of the problem enables the developers to diagnose and fix the issue more quickly. If you’re trying to perform a task and aren’t sure how, describing the things you’ve already tried helps people immediately ignore methods that won’t work and find methods that do. Most modern software makes it difficult to perform an irreversible action that leads to a loss of data, usually by making you confirm that you want the destructive action to happen, so as long as you think and read carefully, you should be safe from significant harm. Hardware is a bit more complicated and you run the risk of causing permanent damage if you do the wrong thing, so work within your skills here; don’t try things unless you know they’re safe.

Read the manual

If some experimentation doesn’t solve the issue, the next-best place to look is in the product manual. The manual was written specifically for your product, and while manuals are often imperfect, they can be quite helpful. Another advantage is that unlike the Internet, manuals are restricted to the product. If you use the index or table of contents in a paper manual or search within a manual in PDF format, you’ll often find more relevant results and fewer results overall than you’d find in a web search, helping you find the answer in less time.

Furthermore, if you ask a relatively simple question in an online community (though it may not be simple to you), you will often get referred to the manual. This is especially true if you’re asking how to perform a certain task. Being referred to the manual is usually a sign that your question is easy and that others expected you to have done your homework first.

Search the web

If the product you’re using is moderately popular, chances are someone else has ran into the same problem before. They may have posted about it on the web, and an answer may be online already. If so, great! You don’t have to go to to the trouble of typing your question and waiting for a response. If not, you’ll at least be able to tell people what web searches didn’t work for you so they don’t waste their time.

Read the release notes

If you get a new version of a piece of software, there will likely be release notes somewhere that tell you what major things were changed. If you’ve used that piece of software before, you’ll probably be aware of some of the bugs in the product. If a bug occurs in both a previous release and the newest release, there is only one time you should report this bug: if it is claimed to be fixed in the release notes. If the release notes do not mention the bug, the developers probably did not fix it, and reporting it again will be an annoyance.

Search the forum archives

You will possibly come across two types of forums or online communities in your search. The developer may have a support forum

When You Ask

Be polite

Attitude

Don’t assume you’re correct

Don’t flag as urgent

Choose where you post carefully

Ask once and wait

Use a clear subject

Use clear language

Be precise and concise

Don’t claim to have found a bug

Describe the symptoms, don’t diagnose

Goal, not step

Don’t PM or e-mail directly

Talking To The Developers/Beta Programs

When you get a response

STFW/RTFM/JFGI

If you don’t understand

If you don’t get a response

Credits

Much of the content of this guide was adapted from How To Ask Questions The Smart Way by Eric Steven Raymond and Rick Moen.