"I read it somewhere on the internet ..."

[sozzled]

The forum rules are meant to be used as guidance to help people who do not know how to use technical discussion forums in order to obtain information/assistance with problems they may be having. How often do we read on this forum,

I saw some information somewhere on the internet that related to my problem but nothing worked ...

or

I remember seeing something on this forum but when I followed the instructions it did not help ...

or

According to my research, the documentation is wrong or non-existent ..."

or

I've followed all the other tips about my problem but nothing helps ...

It doesn't matter many different ways "explain" what they've done and what is "wrong" with the advice they've found, if we don't know exactly what they're referring to, we can't improve on their research if we don't know what "research" they've already done. The forum rules should make a point of informing people that, when they try to explain what they're researched, they should include links to the articles, discussions, etc. that they've used.

The forum rules do talk about How to ask questions the smart way which was written over twenty years ago but how many people have read it? One of the points made in that article is

When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done [certain] things first; this will help establish that you're not being a lazy sponge and wasting people's time. Better yet, display what you have learned from doing these things. We like answering questions for people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers.

Use tactics like doing a Google search on the text of whatever error message you get (searching Google groups as well as Web pages). This might well take you straight to fix documentation or a mailing list thread answering your question. Even if it doesn't, saying “I googled on the following phrase but didn't get anything that looked promising” is a good thing to do in e-mail or news postings requesting help, if only because it records what searches won't help. It will also help to direct other people with similar problems to your thread by linking the search terms to what will hopefully be your problem and resolution thread.

[ redacted ] It would be better, in my opinion, if the forum rules were used to help people ask questions "the smart way" (and help people answer questions, likewise, "the smart way") so that people would feel less intimidated by the possibility that they'll be punished if they don't.

In conclusion, the next time you're tempted to write, "I researched everywhere but I did not find an answer to my problem", please tell us a few places where you researched with links to those places.

[ceford]

That article on How To Ask Questions The Smart Way is a terrible read for our purposes. I read a different article many years ago that I vaguely remember was good but I did not bookmark it. Perhaps we should write our own, put it on our documentation site and refer poor questions to it. So many responses tell the questioner to run the FPA, switch on debugging or otherwise clarify their questions.

[Webdongle]

@ceford
Good idea well volunteered. If you post back here when you've written it that would be good

[ceford]

I was hoping you would put something here for others to chip in before putting something on the docs site.

[Webdongle]

I was hoping you would put something here for others to chip in before putting something on the docs site.

Too much talking and no action. Best get the doc page written then we all can talk about it.